Progress Report 16.1
Annyongh hasseyo, sucker.
How are things there? Okay? Good.
Well here we are, finally - the last email of my 20's. The next report you receive will be from a thirty-something. Urgh. It seems somehow appropriate that I should be entering the Decade of Defeated Dreams here, in South Korea, this Belgium of The Orient.
As you might have guessed, I'm not making the transition into my fourth decade without some amount of adolescent self-indulgence. I shall not go quietly into that beige night. I'm going kicking and screaming and pouting and stamping. I don't WANT to turn thirty!
And yet I know that at the end of the day, it's a meaningless anniversary and a simple change of digit that in the final analysis means nothing to no-one. But that doesn't help. Like most knowledge, it's useless when ignoring it permits greater pleasure. I know full well that nacho cheese makes my stomach rise up against me but that didn't stop me eating a whole tub of it on Sunday. And now, if you might indulge me, I am going to sulk about the inevitable passing of time, for and despite of all the good it shall do me.
Thirty seems an appropriate age to give up prior-cherished dreams, don't you think? For instance, I think it's now plain as day that my plans to be a rock superstar have gone irretrievably awry. I had originally planned to be dead by 27, like so many before me (Hendrix, Joplin, that fella out of the Fat Boys), but I had to revise my mission statement when I'd failed to become internationally famous by 24. Some might put it down to a slight miscalculation in my carefully-formulated mixture of charisma, talent and photogenicity, but I blame it squarely on bad luck. Right person, wrong time, wrong place, wrong alternative-reality-based-in-entirely-in-my-own-repulsively-narcissistic-fantasies. Well it's the music and drugs industries' loss, I suppose, but please doff hats as I lay those particular hopes to rest. Ashes to ashes, funk to funky, etc. I accept that playing the guitar has brought me countless hours of joy, but when I first picked it up, I can assure you that it wasn't purely for the pleasure of displaced ipsation and impressing five-year-olds. That's where it's got me so far. Pout, sulk, pout.
I've also managed to reach thirty without possessing anything vaguely resembling a career (or 29 years and 364 days, though it seems unlikely at this stage that the next twelve hours shall produce a turnaround). My CV reads like a lucky dip of dead-endedness. Call centres, cucumber farms, bar jobs and plastics factories - they all feature in my Professional History for draining durations, almost as if I'd been specificly trying to get 'coping with boundless misery' into the Skils and Abilities section. I can only dream of what it must be like to be asked your occupation and to be able to reply something other than 'I unfulfil potential for a living'. Sulk, pout, sulk.
And as the long road of the thirty-something years pan outward ahead of me, I can take along with me the knowledge that whatever happens to my physicality on that journey, none of it is going to improve. Thinnning, greying hair; sagginess; spread; tired eyes; defeated features - I can hardly frigging wait. And the mouldering maturity of the exterior is going to be in stark contrast to a mentality that still wants to behave like a teenager. This is unfortunate, as repeated excesses of drinking and 'larging it' in your thirties cease to be raffish and rock'n'roll and take on an element of the tragic, don't you think? (Well, not in your case, obviously, but it shall in mine.) What am I going to do for a good time? Do jigsaws? Wear jumpers? Walk up hills? Urrgghh. These things wouldn't even be fun drunk. Sulk, sulk, pout, pout.
And this is the attitude I'm taking into my thrity-first year. Not exactly helpful, is it? Well what do you want me to do it about it - grow up?!
Well at least in between the bouts of self-indulgence, I've been doing some celebrating. The occasion has been marked with a month of special events that commenced with a house party weekend before last, continued with a night out in Anyang last Saturday and shall progress further tomorrow night in Beomgye. And after all the congratulation and commemoration, who knows what this new decade shall bring? Certainly not me, or I probably wouldn't bother.
Okay, I'm going to be along now, as I doubt that if you've got this far, you're less than likely to indulge me much further. Rather than push my luck, I'm going to wrap it up with a message of congratulation to both Jonathan 'Off the Bench, On the Up' Peters and Sam 'I'm Walking Here' Hoar, who've both recently filled respective situations vacant. Well done.
In the next report, I promise to include something about Korea in the form of the 'Top 5 (or possibly 3) Things That Koreans Do That Are Pretty Cool'.
Annyonghi kasseyo,
S
How are things there? Okay? Good.
Well here we are, finally - the last email of my 20's. The next report you receive will be from a thirty-something. Urgh. It seems somehow appropriate that I should be entering the Decade of Defeated Dreams here, in South Korea, this Belgium of The Orient.
As you might have guessed, I'm not making the transition into my fourth decade without some amount of adolescent self-indulgence. I shall not go quietly into that beige night. I'm going kicking and screaming and pouting and stamping. I don't WANT to turn thirty!
And yet I know that at the end of the day, it's a meaningless anniversary and a simple change of digit that in the final analysis means nothing to no-one. But that doesn't help. Like most knowledge, it's useless when ignoring it permits greater pleasure. I know full well that nacho cheese makes my stomach rise up against me but that didn't stop me eating a whole tub of it on Sunday. And now, if you might indulge me, I am going to sulk about the inevitable passing of time, for and despite of all the good it shall do me.
Thirty seems an appropriate age to give up prior-cherished dreams, don't you think? For instance, I think it's now plain as day that my plans to be a rock superstar have gone irretrievably awry. I had originally planned to be dead by 27, like so many before me (Hendrix, Joplin, that fella out of the Fat Boys), but I had to revise my mission statement when I'd failed to become internationally famous by 24. Some might put it down to a slight miscalculation in my carefully-formulated mixture of charisma, talent and photogenicity, but I blame it squarely on bad luck. Right person, wrong time, wrong place, wrong alternative-reality-based-in-entirely-in-my-own-repulsively-narcissistic-fantasies. Well it's the music and drugs industries' loss, I suppose, but please doff hats as I lay those particular hopes to rest. Ashes to ashes, funk to funky, etc. I accept that playing the guitar has brought me countless hours of joy, but when I first picked it up, I can assure you that it wasn't purely for the pleasure of displaced ipsation and impressing five-year-olds. That's where it's got me so far. Pout, sulk, pout.
I've also managed to reach thirty without possessing anything vaguely resembling a career (or 29 years and 364 days, though it seems unlikely at this stage that the next twelve hours shall produce a turnaround). My CV reads like a lucky dip of dead-endedness. Call centres, cucumber farms, bar jobs and plastics factories - they all feature in my Professional History for draining durations, almost as if I'd been specificly trying to get 'coping with boundless misery' into the Skils and Abilities section. I can only dream of what it must be like to be asked your occupation and to be able to reply something other than 'I unfulfil potential for a living'. Sulk, pout, sulk.
And as the long road of the thirty-something years pan outward ahead of me, I can take along with me the knowledge that whatever happens to my physicality on that journey, none of it is going to improve. Thinnning, greying hair; sagginess; spread; tired eyes; defeated features - I can hardly frigging wait. And the mouldering maturity of the exterior is going to be in stark contrast to a mentality that still wants to behave like a teenager. This is unfortunate, as repeated excesses of drinking and 'larging it' in your thirties cease to be raffish and rock'n'roll and take on an element of the tragic, don't you think? (Well, not in your case, obviously, but it shall in mine.) What am I going to do for a good time? Do jigsaws? Wear jumpers? Walk up hills? Urrgghh. These things wouldn't even be fun drunk. Sulk, sulk, pout, pout.
And this is the attitude I'm taking into my thrity-first year. Not exactly helpful, is it? Well what do you want me to do it about it - grow up?!
Well at least in between the bouts of self-indulgence, I've been doing some celebrating. The occasion has been marked with a month of special events that commenced with a house party weekend before last, continued with a night out in Anyang last Saturday and shall progress further tomorrow night in Beomgye. And after all the congratulation and commemoration, who knows what this new decade shall bring? Certainly not me, or I probably wouldn't bother.
Okay, I'm going to be along now, as I doubt that if you've got this far, you're less than likely to indulge me much further. Rather than push my luck, I'm going to wrap it up with a message of congratulation to both Jonathan 'Off the Bench, On the Up' Peters and Sam 'I'm Walking Here' Hoar, who've both recently filled respective situations vacant. Well done.
In the next report, I promise to include something about Korea in the form of the 'Top 5 (or possibly 3) Things That Koreans Do That Are Pretty Cool'.
Annyonghi kasseyo,
S
posted by Stephen Beckett at 3:43 PM
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