What can you do with that?

I graduate university in almost a month. When I tell people that I'm graduating with a creative writing degree, their eyes light up for a brief moment - I guess it's more interesting than the answer they were expecting - and then just as quickly the surprise gives way to a searching expression, followed by the question that I've learned to dread:

 'so,' they say, 'what can you do with that?'

'It's a piece of paper,' I want to say. 'What I can do with it is limited to what anyone can do with a piece of paper. I can put it in a frame. I can make a paper plane. I could do origami, only I've always found it way too difficult.  If I wanted something functional I would have gone to the two dollar shop and bought a bottle opener or an apple peeler or a lemon juicer. These are objects that you 'do' something 'with.' My degree was a series of intellectual hurdles, and clearing them broadened my appreciation of the written word and my understanding of the human condition. I did them all, and now they're done. Now they're done, the world looks different. I'm not the same person. It's made me better. Rest assured, I'll get a job. I'm not going to sit at home all day in a dressing gown writing short stories that don't sell while the good citizens of the world (read: you) support me. But I've decided that the job I get is not what I'm going to live for. I'm going to live for trips to the library. For the joy of writing a paragraph that works, and the dark pleasure of slashing out one that doesn't. For reading real-life like a story. For finding inspiration in everyday conversation. For the moment when my friend or co-worker says 'I once knew this girl - ' or 'I've got this Uncle-' and the story they innocently narrate over coffee is good enough to weave into a novel. My degree has made me into a person who looks for beauty in the mundane, and for art in the daily. A person who is always alert to possibility. I don't know what I'm going to do with my life, but I can guarantee I won't get bored with it.'

But of course, that's not what I say. Instead I say:

'Not much really. Maybe one day I'll do post-grad.'

Adventures in solitude

I'm a luddite. I don't like technology. Or, more specifically, I don't like the way people use it. I deleted my Facebook and twitter accounts because I had to get away from social media. I hated the culture of 'I share therefore I am.' If a girl has a bad day in the forest and she doesn't tweet about it, did it really happen? We have become our own paparazzi. We've turned our private lives into public property. Facebook markets itself as a service, but in reality: we are the product.Call me old fashioned, but I like to keep to myself. I like to process my experiences at my own pace. I want to have some adventures - in solitude.

My life on the internet was most fulfilling when I was sixteen years old, and my friends and I kept long-form blogs for our own entertainment. There was a spirit of self-reflection in every thing we wrote, and with each entry we came closer to establishing a sense of identity, of who we were and what we believed in. It almost feels like we've regressed since then. New media has trained us to only share thoughts that can be contained in 140 characters. The internet has become like a crowded dinner table where everybody is talking and nobody is listening. When I removed myself from Facebook I gave up my seat at the table. I walked outside and stared at the world. I want to use this long-form blog to find my real voice again.