Why Doesn't Anyone Under the Age of 35 Want a Real Job?
 
There's been a lot of talk about hipsters on food stamps on the Internet in the past few days. Let's ignore the what is a hipster question (even though we all know the answer is anyone under 35 who  is not an investment banker or a religious zealot). Let's ignore the fact that a lot of the attacks waged at these people are actually indicting these people for socially responsible behavior (buying local, supporting small business). Let's ignore the class issues that it brings up (what is privilege?).

What this article really makes me consider is the fact that no one my age wants to bunker down and get a real job. We all want to go off and ride our bikes and go volunteer on organic farms or start pickling companies or tend to a beehive. We want to blog about cupcakes and maybe, someday, publish a cupcake cookbook or open a cupcake shop. We want to write and do art. Isn't that what everyone's parents wanted to do before time and circumstance made most of them settle down?

It sounds awful. It sounds immature and ridiculous. "Buck up, Buddy," I think. "Get yourself to work for eight hours a day. It's not so bad. Your parents and those before them did it. You only have another 45 years if you're lucky...or, if you can't hack it, go get a teaching certificate or something, etc. etc."

But something in me reels against it. I've been at this desk job (admittedly, one that is kind of ideal) since October and I realize I was happier working on my bike. The responsible person in me should be thankful for having any job at all, for insurance, for stability. But the living, breathing person says, "Rent is cheap, ride a bike, try to write, and see what happens."

In the end, if we try to suspend ourselves in this prolonged adolescence in this Never Never Land of a city, we all might end up old, penniless, and jobless in a state of self-induced downward mobility. Or will we, inevitably, succumb to the grind where we whittle away the hours by keeping a blog no one will really read, or looking at street cam photos a coworker e-mailed of a parade uptown, or staring at the setting sun through the ninth floor skylight?