It makes me green with envy sometimes, these people who graduate, get a job at a multinational, get married to someone within a year or two and just settle down. They just make it seem so effortless and I just can’t fathom how they do it. To settle just doesn’t seem to be in my vocabulary, there is always something that’s better, somewhere to be reached. What’s even odder is that I can clearly see where I want to be, it’s crystal clear but the route is sort of like the way to Mordor, wreathed in darkness. The settlers just make everything seem so easy I either feel stupid, confused or just both.
What I would love to do is just for a week live the life of a settled person, just to experience it for a bit, a 8-5 job where one is a cog in a big machine, come home to the wifey who also works in a similar company and watch some telly, eat some take out and hit the sack (I’m assuming sex is reserved for Friday and Saturday nights and its strictly missionary instead of say the ‘congress of a cow’). I’m assuming that’s the life of a settled person as opposed to mine, living in temporary digs for the greater part of seven years, soon to be going on eight, the desire to work at a job where I not only get paid, but I improve myself, easily bored, only time for relationships is on holiday (recipe for failure) and a constant hunger for something. I kind of get what Christopher Ondaatje was going on about when he penned the phrase “the devil drives.”
I suppose at the end of the day I want to be a settler, domestic bliss would be nice. But it has to be on my terms, not some drudgery of a job to make ends meet, but something I truly love to do (i.e. wander about the jungle with a camera and then write about it) and in a time and place of my choosing (i.e. Sri Lanka sometime in the next decade). I reckon settling now would kill me slowly with boredom. I need to do that Europe walkabout, follow Bryson’s footsteps in Aussie, spend a month at the Shack diving and just being a general beach bum and not have to worry about a significant other, a mortgage or a brat. So for now (or at least the next half a decade) I guess, I’m going to wander.
(Actually that’s not strictly true, since I’m going to have to hold my next job for at least 2.5-3 years so I can move back home and start a stint of real wandering, so I guess I’m wandering in the metaphorical sense)
I kind of relate to what you said, in that I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be settled. But then it takes me about 5 seconds to shake myself out of that grim fascination and be glad that I still have some sort of enthusiasm and freedom without the shackles of settled down life. I suppose it’s like watching someone walk on hot coals and thinking to yourself ‘hmm I wonder what that feels like!’ and then thinking ‘yeah it was just hypothetical!’
Comment by Darwin — April 3, 2007 @ 7:35 am
be careful what you wish for etc. I hate to inject a note of moroseness into this post but to quote Thoreau (I think) - the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. I’m not sure I want that for myself.
Besides. Ugh. Cog in a big machine? That doesn’t sound very fulfilling.
Comment by drac — April 3, 2007 @ 8:34 am
I used to be a committed ‘wanderer’ - until the nuptials, that is. Now it’s a more an ‘un-committed’ wandering, but wandering, nevertheless. Take your time, man, but in the end if you do decide to ’settle’, keep that wanderer impulse alive. Being ’settled’ in the way you describe ain’t where it’s at , at all.
Comment by Java Jones — April 3, 2007 @ 10:52 am
This is why I’m in non-paying research, as opposed to being in some soul-sucking high-paying job - I’m not willing to be ‘a cog in a big machine’, just for the sake of settling.
Drac’s right…the mass of men DO lead lives of desperation (not always quiet). But those men aren’t all wanderers. Settlers yearn to free themselves from the cycle as much as wanderers yearn to be in the cycle (for a time). It’s all about the grass being greener on the other side. I think there are pluses and minuses to both lifestyles…the trick is to be content with what you have right now.
Comment by PseudoRandom — April 3, 2007 @ 10:56 am
I reckon that when, and if, you find the right person, you won’t think of it in negative tones like mortgage and brat. At the right time those things will be looked at as “home” and “children”. I’d agree with pseudorandon that contentment is the key to it all.
Comment by RD — April 3, 2007 @ 3:07 pm
pfft, “settling down” so overrated. Nomadic life is the most fulfilling I say. But I guess to each his own? One man’s blissful wandering is another’s trek in the wilderness I suppose?
Comment by rastiadu karaya — April 3, 2007 @ 5:53 pm
Darwin – I actually wouldn’t mind walking on hot coals, just to see…I think that’s a far too exciting simile for the settled life!
I would more liken it to driving a Lexus…comfy and easy but no fun. I’m a Integra kind of guy myself.
Drac – oh by no means would I really want that life, it does however look so ‘easy’ if you get what I mean, that life of ‘quiet desperation.’ Especially at a time like this when I have to make some fairly large and hard decisions. But yes you’re very right in that life wouldn’t be at all fulfilling, at least for someone like me.
Java – definitely mate, I’m gonna take my time…have some interesting plans for 2009/10. Fingers crossed as to whether I can follow through on them.
Pseudorandom – content with what I have? Sigh…I don’t think I’ll feel that for awhile…I’m a wanderer but the ‘devil still drives,’ isn’t wandering a result of not being content with what you have though?
RD – I don’t think this is an issue purely based on relationship terms, its more of a rejection and at the same time envy of a way of life that on the surface looks deceptively simple and easy but I know that no matter how easy it looks, it would drive me nuts.
Rastiadu – wandering/trek in the wilderness…to a naturephile like me that sounds like the same thing and both equally appealing
I like the wandering but its not easy to do with all the familial pressures to settle down so they can tell all the relatives “yes he’s such a good boy, he went to college, gotten himself a good job, nice car, etc…you know your daughter and him…good match eh!” Of course my family thankfully is not that in my face with this kind of thing but they do exert a constant if subtle pressure on me to conform and be a good South Asian boy and settle. I guess they’re going to be in for a big disappointment.
Comment by childof25 — April 3, 2007 @ 6:42 pm
One thing that almost all wanderers have to face is the fucking sympathy of some settlers. Fine, maybe some wanderers yearn to be ’saved’ but that’s not true for all. A lot of settlers just cannot grasp the concept of being ’single by choice’ or just plain ‘happy being a wanderer’.
Comment by SpectralCentroid — April 4, 2007 @ 2:04 am
u seem right 4 a CSR dude. Its bcomin a popular designation in beeg companies in SL. If I’d heard right there’d b lots of scope in that area into the future. machang b proud of the fact that ur different to a settler. heh heh I too a trying to find my feet to be different in my own way.
Comment by dogfight — April 4, 2007 @ 4:13 am
i’m green with envy too abt ppl who are in stable jobs with a regular income so they don’t need to worry abt paying the mortgage etc.. can’t believe i was one of those ppl just last week..if there’s one word i’m hating at the moment it’s CHANGE !!
ya i also wonder abt the ’settled’ life.. i think it would be nice to hv a man to worry abt the mortgage and the bills and moving house..if i don’t find a job by mid summer i’ll settle for a husband with one instead *sigh*
when do u start ur new job? good luck with the ‘plan’
Comment by savi3 — April 4, 2007 @ 6:49 pm
I say Savi3, you better be damn good in cooking, cleaning and brilliant in bed to land a deal like that woman.
Comment by SpectralCentroid — April 7, 2007 @ 4:36 pm