The Life Track
What are you doing this summer? It’s the adult question we students come into contact with so often this time of year. After a semester of the independent life here at college, you will invariably find yourself trying to make conversation with grownups, the strangest of specimens. Their conversation style is exactly the same as it has always been-they demand answers. It’s just, instead of inquiring about your grade level, your sports teams or your extracurricular activities, the adults in your life would like your summer plans formally announced. Looks like you just realized why you’re having such a hell of a good time in college.
You shouldn’t despair, though. The white adult power structure handbook authorizes several different types of acceptable summer activities. You can take classes, travel, or work in any capacity at all without incurring any loss of status, just as long as you don’t give yourself enough time to read all the books on your list, listen to good music, or enjoy a cool drink. Of course, you still do all these things this summer, but you should never disclose that at the declaration of summer plans ceremony itself.
No, if you want to truly impress adults, you only need to say one word: internship. Grownups’ eyes light up like Sixth Street when you tell them you are voluntarily placing yourself at the bottom of some company’s ladder. You try to tell them this, emphasizing the fact that you just sit in front of a computer all day, sometimes performing menial tasks, but mostly surfing the Internet and chortling about how hot it is. You can’t reason with them, though. They chalk your job description up to your typical modesty, making a mental note to later annoy their own son or daughter with news of how accomplished you are.
They gush because you are becoming one of them. Previously, you had time to enjoy the present without constantly checking your watch, but now it’s time to start thinking about the future. College will be over soon, and you will want to be able to find a job so quickly after you graduate that you will be able to make your post-graduation job ceremony announcement right when you come back home for that summer. Your participation in an internship signals to the adult that you are right on The Track To A Successful Life. Once you have completed The Track, they know, you will be leading a worthwhile existence, just like them.
When you settle down with a family in a brand-new suburban home in the boring part of town, you will have made it. You’ll have a respectable career that gives you the ability to support a healthy, American household, and you’ll have reason to be damn proud of yourself. Though you will have to be constantly thinking about money to make sure your house is equipped with as many brand-new consumer products as possible, you won’t have to think about other, more complex issues. You won’t be worried anymore about the world’s poor health, its horrific inequalities, or its humanity. You’ll be simply watching out for yourself, like every other successful adult. Not only that, you just might start stocking your refrigerator with humongous vats of mayonnaise.
It’s ridiculous to discourage anyone from earning money this summer (although so many internships these days are unpaid), and I believe very much in the dignity of work. Your duty is not to save the world. The point is that nobody has a duty to do anything. Our only job is to do something we like with our lives. Otherwise, in a few years, we’ll all start acting like grownups.
You shouldn’t despair, though. The white adult power structure handbook authorizes several different types of acceptable summer activities. You can take classes, travel, or work in any capacity at all without incurring any loss of status, just as long as you don’t give yourself enough time to read all the books on your list, listen to good music, or enjoy a cool drink. Of course, you still do all these things this summer, but you should never disclose that at the declaration of summer plans ceremony itself.
No, if you want to truly impress adults, you only need to say one word: internship. Grownups’ eyes light up like Sixth Street when you tell them you are voluntarily placing yourself at the bottom of some company’s ladder. You try to tell them this, emphasizing the fact that you just sit in front of a computer all day, sometimes performing menial tasks, but mostly surfing the Internet and chortling about how hot it is. You can’t reason with them, though. They chalk your job description up to your typical modesty, making a mental note to later annoy their own son or daughter with news of how accomplished you are.
They gush because you are becoming one of them. Previously, you had time to enjoy the present without constantly checking your watch, but now it’s time to start thinking about the future. College will be over soon, and you will want to be able to find a job so quickly after you graduate that you will be able to make your post-graduation job ceremony announcement right when you come back home for that summer. Your participation in an internship signals to the adult that you are right on The Track To A Successful Life. Once you have completed The Track, they know, you will be leading a worthwhile existence, just like them.
When you settle down with a family in a brand-new suburban home in the boring part of town, you will have made it. You’ll have a respectable career that gives you the ability to support a healthy, American household, and you’ll have reason to be damn proud of yourself. Though you will have to be constantly thinking about money to make sure your house is equipped with as many brand-new consumer products as possible, you won’t have to think about other, more complex issues. You won’t be worried anymore about the world’s poor health, its horrific inequalities, or its humanity. You’ll be simply watching out for yourself, like every other successful adult. Not only that, you just might start stocking your refrigerator with humongous vats of mayonnaise.
It’s ridiculous to discourage anyone from earning money this summer (although so many internships these days are unpaid), and I believe very much in the dignity of work. Your duty is not to save the world. The point is that nobody has a duty to do anything. Our only job is to do something we like with our lives. Otherwise, in a few years, we’ll all start acting like grownups.
posted by Tobias Salinger | 2:32 PM
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