For me, the hardest part about growing up is realizing that no one really knows what they’re doing. Some believe they do, but really, deep down, everyone has their doubts. It’s like discovering that Santa Claus doesn’t exist when you’re 25. For so long, you believed the system you grew up in was logical and correct. Go to school, learn how to be an employee, become an employee.
Then the cracks start to form. Maybe you learn that most of our consumer goods are made by child labor or inmates in a private prison system. Well, that sucks. But what can I, one person, do to change it? I still need to wear clothes, don’t I? I can’t just walk around naked, right?
Next, maybe you realize one morning, at 3 am, that most of the things we buy pollute the planet so badly that we might not be able to live here much longer. That we are being asked to work for companies that perpetuate these problems. Subscribe to this system, participate in it. But if you want to be able to pay your rent and buy food, that’s what you have to do, right? What are the other options?
I don’t mean to be a pessimist or an alarmist. Not really. I still buy things from corporations, I might still go work for one of these places if I need to pay my bills. I am part of the problem, basically.
But I think it’s worth asking the questions. We haven’t actually lived this way for very long, in the scope of human history. The industrial revolution started a little over two hundred years ago, and from there things started to get super weird. Can we at least admit that? That something about all of this feels… strange? That living the lives we are expected to live hurts and damages so many other people and pollutes our home? Do we have any other choices?
So, as you can see, figuring out what to do next in my career has been kind of a bummer.
But at least I have my house and furniture projects, my designing and writing. I just won’t think about all the chemicals in my paints and who built my tools. Let myself have some blissful ignorance for a bit.
Right now, nothing’s perfect. But as they say, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
design + surrender 