Apparently there is a quote from Simone De Beauvoir’s Pyrrhus and Cinéas that goes like this: “A man alone in the world would be paralyzed by the manifest vanity of all his goals.” I know this from reading ‘Sex and Philosophy: Rethinking De Beauvoir and Sartre’ by Kate and Edward Fullbrook, a book by a couple about a couple that Patrick and I are reading as a couple in our new investigation of otherness and role model couples. Following the quote by De Beauvoir, the Fullbrook’s offer this elaboration, “ To reduce and make bearable the contingency of one’s existence requires the validation by others of one’s projects.” And as I meander my way farther and farther away from the safe arms of New College and the institution of education in general, the validation-provider extraordinaire, I am feeling the paralysis creep in. Days going by with half, a third, a quarter the productivity I shelled out daily in Florida because I am, yes, paralyzed by the abyss of possibilities before me. Some of them are appealing, of course, but none of them provide the same allure and gratification as those possibilities set forth, solicited, authorized by the teacher, the boss, the institution, the grant foundation.
I am recalling, now finally understanding, the No Face song “Overeducated” I used to sing and perform at the beginning of college. The guy who wrote it dropped out after my first year, I imagine as a result of feeling the way he sang about in his song. And the problem with overeducation is not all the skills and talents and possibilities I have accumulated, or the pieces of paper, the connections, the grant monies. No, these are symptoms of being educated. Good symptoms, at that. The symptoms of overeducation creep up slowly, on rainy mornings and sleepless evenings. You find yourself craving an assignment, a task to be completed for someone. Your interests are accumulating, blossoming exponentially, yet...yet somehow the motivation to conquer them all, to do them justice, is missing! Gone into the bottomless hole of sleeping in, rummaging through the fridge, dawdling in your room while looking for the right collection of items to take on an afternoon stroll to the library. “No, it’s there!” you say, “I’ve always wanted to learn how to sew, and finish off The Will to Power, and produce an album, and now I have the time and the energy to do it!” But despite all the energizing self-talk, you are down with overeduation, and you have to admit to yourself that nothing gets you going like that 7 AM deadline for your weekly philosophy seminar paper. Nothing gets you going at all, really, without the promise of punishment. Or more pointedly, the sweet opposite, the promise of beautifully satisfying approval. Ohhhhh, yeah. Give me that approval.
So here I am feeling paralyzed, overeducated. I am not going to complain too much though, because despite however much I am supported by Existentialism and Simone De Beauvoir when I speak of the anguish of existence, there really is nothing more disgustingly privileged than whining about having too much education and being overwhelmed by the endless possibilities offered by the world. Please! Still, there are some important questions to be asked by all of us who are currently overeducated or who are at risk of contracting overeducation. First of all, since none of us who are currently infected with overeducation care to continue in this state of torpor, how can we overcome the primary symptom of overeducation? Namely, how do we get the approval we need for our projects without the support of our beloved institution, whatever it might have been?
I know there are many possible answers here, but I’ll just throw out a few. There is always the “the only approval you need is from yourself, march to the beat of your own drum” type of answer, but sticking with De Beauvoir for the time being I’m going to just go ahead and reject that one right now. Turning to our self as the sole judge of our projects just doesn’t cut it. We are social, we are hierarchical, and typically we engage in projects that have to do with other people, at least on some level. De Beauvoir wrote books she expected people to read, my friend Jim tests isotopes in ants so that other scientists can do their jobs better, my mom teaches yoga for her students. So, ok, fine, yes, I need to genuinely enjoy what I am doing, but that just isn’t getting me out of the bed on those deliciously rainy Arkansas mornings. There have to be others. Paralysis is unavoidable otherwise. The next obvious answer is to find another group of people who will give you approval; the ones that will appreciate the fruits of your efforts, those who the thought of which makes your projects seem valid and worthwhile. This option is a form of setting up a new institution of sorts for yourself; a new approval-dealer.
And it is within the second option that I find myself dwelling, in particular concerning the question “Why am I making this album?” Sure, I enjoy making music. But certainly not all the time. And recently I haven’t been that into it at all. So when the moments of sheer joy at making music dissipate, I am left with the question: “Why make an album?” I am no longer able to say: “well, I should finish it to get a good evaluation” or “might as well finish it up to get the degree" and I certainly am not in the mood for "well, it will look good on my resume." Instead I am starting to form this vague notion of people out there in the world who would receive the music. The people who might actually really enjoy listening to my music, my sometimes unusual musical choices, the genre combinations, the uncompromising lyrics. My imaginary group of ideal listeners has to be my new institution. Those people who do actually want to hear about existential crises and Ravel piano licks all in one song. The people who will like my politically apathetic tirades; the people, in short, who feel that they can express a part of themselves through my genuine self-expression. So I guess it’s really a combination between the beat of my own drum and the institution. The institution of people with metronomes at the same tempo as mine, at least close enough.
There is so much more to be said about the process, but this should be enough of a clue that it has been a month of more fretting and living in my own head than converting sound waves into digital memories. Still, progress has been made and will continue to be made. TV shows have been recorded, shows played, songs written, parts notated. I have a new song I like a lot called Sit Down. Sit down to know where I started, sit down to know where I fall.... I’ve noticed that now that I am out of school I spend a lot less time sitting and thinking that I used to. Now sitting down, to write, to think, to focus, is extremely cathartic and centering. Without sitting down every once in a while I find myself getting tight and light headed and out of breath, caught up in the fragments of my own mind and my disoriented and waffling projects.
