Dear Jen: Is it OK to just recede slowly into obsolescence?
In this month's newsletter, I delve into the very minor question of human stagnation, aging, and, to an extent, what it means to live
This month's question for "Thursday Letters with Jen" is fairly minor one on human stagnation, aging, and, to an extent, what it means to live:
"What should we do as we get older, realize we can't learn/know everything, and can begin to start identifying places where the world is passing us by? I don't so much mean teaching boomer parents to use technology. I mean more along the lines of I truly couldn't give a shit about Snapchat, and don't have an Instagram account, but I realize a LOT of the world and pop culture draw on these things, and a complete lack of familiarity with them will make me less relevant, and definitely not a thought leader. Is it OK to just recede slowly into obsolescence?"
— Jess Alouicious Grainger
Dear Jess Alouicious Grainger,
First of all, well shit. Are we really going to start this way?
Second, before I delve into the actual question, I have a writing disclaimer. In this newsletter, I am going to actually quote other people. This is significant for me. I loathe the excessive use of quotations in writing because if I am reading/listening to person A, I really don't want to hear them pull most of their content from person B. Perhaps this aversion is from all of the valedictorian speeches that I have been hostage to over the years where a kid spends half of their time quoting, of all people, Abraham Lincoln. Am I really supposed to think there is alignment between a US president who led our country through the Civil War and some anxious Vietnamese kid who took 9 AP courses? In any case, I will get over my fear of Abraham Lincoln quotes and will reference some other thinkers in this trivial question of human existence that you have posed.
Third, here's the actual answer to your question. The short answer is, "Yes and..." to obsolescence, which I am a big fan of. The longer answer is the following three parts:
I would not "recede" into obsolescence, but embrace it. I am one of those semi-nihilist people who believes that life doesn't have inherent meaning. I truly think we are the product of a bunch of atoms that decided to just hang out for millions of years until one day they collectively said, "Hey! We got this idea for a gay Vietnamese kid who hates other Vietnamese kids that quote Abraham Lincoln, let's do it." And they did it. How cool is that? That said, I do think that our existence is hinged on the meaning we decide to ascribe to our lives. To me is a combination of relishing in the "Is that all there is?" attitude, being present in the world we are temporary occupying, and living into the one thing we have — relationships with other strange blobs of atoms. If I am going to be here randomly, why just recede? Why not actually...relish in some of its pleasures? Here, I quote (sigh) Julia Cameron of the Artist Way who writes:
"Survival lies in sanity, and sanity lies in paying attention...the quality of life is in proportion, always, for the capacity of delight."
Let's give a shit about feeling new feelings. I absolutely concur with the sentiment against learning new technology, like Snapchat, which I associate solely with the exchange of unsavory photos of the nude and/or dipshit kind. However, I would pivot away from the idea of learning a very specific terrible technology and move towards the idea of facilitating new feelings, new emotional depths, and new ways to explore the world with wonder. I know this feels a bit "earthy hippie that follows the magnetic pull" advice, but here I offer a personal anecdote. A few years ago, amid the pandemic, I began to feel a flattening of my world. The obvious culprit was the lack of stimulation outside of my phone, computer, and house due to a global public health crisis. However, the more concerning phenomenon was the flattening of my emotions. I was full of anger and rage, which has become the unfortunate blunt tool of American society. Here's a retro graphic of a few of the things that made me angry:
Although I think anger is a healthy emotion that should not be suppressed, I do not think it is healthy to stay in that feeling. For me, it was not sustainable nor is it very enjoyable. I wanted the full spectrum of feelings again. With the assistance of a coach and a therapist, I have started to answer a different question: "How can I feel new feelings?" I am still a work-in-progress in centering this question, but I can already see the differences in my general disposition. It's a different, more expansive frame of moving through the world. Here is yet another quote from one of my favorite movie, Richard Linklater's incredible Boyhood, where a father speaks to his coming-of-age son:
"What's the point [of life]? I mean, I sure as shit don't know. Neither does anybody else, okay? We're all just winging it, you know? The good news is you're feeling stuff. And you've got to hold on to that."
In following new feelings, you can learn new things that are less shitty than Snapchat. I conclude this newsletter with the idea that instead of starting with what you want to learn, I'd ask "What do you want to feel and what can you learn to catch that feeling?" That way, we're not stuck in a cycle of learning shitty things that make us feel shitty that make us then recede into an obsolescence we should all be embracing.
For example, recently I decided that I wanted to feel childlike delight again by learning something new. I've had the privilege of being in Canada these past few weeks for a writing residency, which has forced me to confront my long-held terror of snow. Like seriously, what the fuck is snow? Why does it stick to the ground and morph into black ice, which forces me to wear very lesbian-esque boxy hiking boots everywhere I go so that I don't die? I also had a fear of skiing and constantly remind my partner that I don't want to be "Kennedy'd" (sorry, too soon?) on the downhill. I opted to learn how to cross-country ski. I felt awe wearing a pair of cross-country skis, which helped me navigate the terrain I feared the most. And sure, I glided like a severely wounded gazelle with the grace of a 2003 Toyota Corolla with 500,000 miles on it, but in the process, I felt something else — I felt so proud of my body. That's new and I'm going to hold on to that feeling. The point here is that if I started with the task I wanted to learn and not the feeling, I would have said "fuck no" to skiing because if Sonny Bono can die so can I. And that would have robbed me of the aforementioned.
Thank you so much for your question, friend. Here, have an earworm of a gift by way of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Cut to the Feeling."
Good luck sojourner,
Jen
I'll see you all next month! If you haven't already, please feel free to submit a question using this form. I love the spectrum of questions I have already received, which range from the existential to the combative ("Why do I have to fill out my name on this form, Jen?"). Let's keep it going.