It's been almost three years since I began this blog, and tonight I'm publishing this, my 100th post here. I'd hoped to do something special for this, but alas my life has not changed substantially since yesterday. I'm still at my parents' house, sleeping at strange hours and wishing I knew what the hell they had planned for the day so at least I could plan around it. As it is, I'm spending a lot of day wasting my time with online prolefeed which is meaningless, but which can be interrupted with little or no cost.
Now obviously I should be more appreciative of my loving parents and help them with their endless stream of unsolvable problems. But it doesn't work like that. And after taking Diff EQ, I know that cleaning a house definitely doesn't work like that.
So let's talk about projects. And let's talk about growing up.
Last night, I watched a video by Derek Muller talking about the concept of Self Efficacy. He does a good job explaining it and undoubtedly knows more about it than me, but basically self efficacy has to do with your belief that you can accomplish a thing. This is usually collapsed under self-esteem, but separating the two concepts gives a clearer picture of both of them.
One point that Derek makes in the video is that people frequently pursue the careers their parents or older friends pursue, not necessarily because of connections or inherent ability (though those certainly contribute), but also because they see it being done and realize that it's something which they can do, too. Theoretically physics doesn't seem impossible if your parents are theoretical physicists, genetic engineering doesn't seem impossible if your parents are bioscientists, and becoming a stage actor doesn't seem an impossible dream if your parents are on Broadway. You see people going through the various tasks of that career, doing that various things that need to be done, and earning a living.
My parents were government employees, doing the sort of boring jobs necessary to keep the federal bureaucracy running smoothly. I can only describe abstractly what my Dad does for a living. Even after her retirement, I can only gesture and point at some of the things Mom was doing at work. It's not that they're classified or anything--it's just technical paper-pushing that is meaningless without an enormous amount of background knowledge.
That's what I was raised around. The very definition of bland, stable office jobs. They're both French majors, too.
Now, I have friends who are engineering students and the like, but I have to wonder if this relative distance is a contributing factor to my past academic struggles. (I still haven't checked my grades from this semester; there's a decent chance they're still continuing.) Note that my parents were the closest people to me, intellectually, conversationally, etc until last year, and remain in the top five in most categories through today. I don't have a whole lot of role models for academic and social success in engineering that are in at all the same niche as me. I'm making this up as I go along are honestly amn't confident I can do it.
There's projects I want to pursue. I want to clean my room, permanently. I want to design an interplanetary mission in Kerbal Space Program. I want to learn some programming skills that aren't married to Matlab. I want to get good grades. I want to write quality blog posts. I want to read more books. But I'm not particularly confident in my ability to do any of them, in large part because they depend on lots of things outside my control. Specifically, I need time. And time is the one thing my parents adamantly refuse to give me.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. We'll be trying to cram our tree into the living room and attending not one but two different church services, and I would honestly be surprised if television isn't watched. There will not be time to do my own projects, which is the actual dream I have for holidays. I spend the whole year with my time use dictated by someone else. I just want a few glorious weeks when I'm left to my own devices.
I haven't had a term off school since summer of 2013, I'll remind you. Winter break is the best thing I get. Why not let me enjoy myself for a few goddamn weeks? Why am I stuck trying and failing to recreate the Christmases of Dad's youth? It's okay to try that, I suppose, but why do I have to work so hard to recreate something I never experienced? I'd like to have Christmases of my own for a change.
There's more going on here, of course. The generational differences are quite significant. For one thing, television was the epitome of recreation when they were growing up. For me, it's not. I enjoy certain shows, but it's not a fundamentally enjoyable activity for me. I'd rather play a board game or just enjoy one another's company while doing our own things, but that's not allowed, apparently. I have to sit and watch whatever goddamn movie or show they want to force upon me, when I would rather do something other than sit uncomfortably on the couch while experiencing no agency.
Agency is the main difference here, I think. As adults with jobs and all that, my parents exercise a certain degree of agency on a daily basis. I don't exercise nearly as much because I'm either a college student, a retail drone, or a 21-year-old living with my parents. Watching television with my parents only enforces that feeling of no control. Getting upset at me when I don't want to watch reruns of a show that aired when one could count your age in a single digit does not help the matter.
Scott Alexander said, in 2008, that he didn't blame his parents for the sensation of being stifled. But I've tried to explain this to them, and they apparently don't understand or don't care, so to some extend I do blame them. I keep trying to help them hack my behavior and they keep doing things the hard way. It's doubly frustrating to know why I'm reacting a certain way, and knowing how we all could mitigate these animosities entirely if you would just fucking cooperate. But I suppose that's what they say about me, too.
This really hasn't been terribly coherent, but that's the story of this blog. As mentioned previously, starting next year I will attempt to do longer, more serious posts at another blog, located here. There's nothing there now, but future readers are welcome to peruse it. I'll keep you updated as we get closer to New Year's Eve.
I don't know if I'll be writing a post tomorrow night, but I will try.
