Reflections on Adulthood with a Very Old Friend

Here's a letter I wrote as part of an exchange with a friend from elementary school

DALL-E cranked this out in response to the text below

A friend of mine from elementary school recently reached out, and we’ve been reflecting on life together. Here’s a letter I wrote in response to something he shared about being plagued by doubts about productivity and purpose and starting a new family, and I’m sharing it here in case it’s illuminating and useful to you too:

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Alex,

I don't know if it's a phenomenon particular to our generation and culture, but the 'productivity and purpose' issue is one that tortures a lot of people I know, including me. It's certainly a jarring transition for everyone to exit childhood and enter adulthood, to go from being celebrated for your sheer potential to being burdened by responsibilities and plagued by doubts as to the worth of your achievements. By "burden" I don't mean "bad thing", at least not necessarily - I mean that all possibilities for yourself as an individual also have to account for the commitments you've made to the people who depend on you, which is an additional weight to carry even if that weight nourishes you. Commitments are commitments, to be fulfilled by definition whether you like it or not, which puts a hard ceiling on possibilities for individual self-expression. 

As I think you've discovered, the solution to this can only really come by taking on a new identity, one that wholly embraces the new person you get to be in deeply committed relationships. This can be a challenging thing in American culture, which prizes innovation and entrepreneurship and frontier heroism and lots of things that don't involve the people who are bound to you. This isn't to say that innovation and entrepreneurship and frontier heroism are bad, just that it creates this haunting background pressure for a lot of people, pressure that suggests that unless you have stuff named after you and die atop a giant pile of money then you might as well have never been alive. So much of the work of being human goes into creating nourishing connections with the people in our lives, work that is vitally necessary and almost certainly won't make you rich and famous. 

I don't myself have children, and I'm not sure that I will - I'm not against it in theory, and also I am vastly conscious of my own psychological issues and am deeply doubtful of my own capacity to generate a happy childhood for someone. My self-as-contribution identity comes in the form of 12-step mentorship, helping alcoholics on day 1 of recovery, getting them on their feet in creating a new sober life for themselves. No matter what I face, no matter what calamities befall me, if I go to bed sober then I get to declare the day a victory, one that shows others like me what it's possible to endure. 

I do, of course, feel the sting of self-consciousness and insecurity when I see other people succeed in ways that on some level I wish were available to me. I can see that a lot, thanks to social media, which seems precision engineered to torture us - I get hooked by watching someone else's highlight reel and feel like there is indeed hope in this world, just not for me. Or perhaps the algorithm shows me a repulsive freak who hates my guts and works day and night to destroy everything I stand for, and I feel enraged and powerless to stop them. Either way, the good-news-bad-news of contemporary life is that we have a severely enhanced awareness of people who we'd never meet otherwise, people we'd never meet for very good reasons. 

I wish that I could wave my magic wand and provide for you the opportunities of your dreams, but of course I cannot - nobody can, which is another blessing and curse of American life. To live in liberal modernity means that faith and family will not assign you your identity and direction in life, but instead will merely advise and encourage you in ways that you are ultimately free to accept or reject on your own terms. Your purpose and power are ultimately your own, which is a dizzying responsibility. We all have to find our way or make one. 

I'm not sure when I'll ever stop feeling chameleon-like, to use your phrase - without a ready-made purpose the best I've been able to do has been to contribute to people as much as I can, including professionally. This has meant wearing lots of different hats and developing lots of soft skills that are difficult to define on a resume, but which are nevertheless there and which I'm proud to have all the same. My purpose is showing up powerfully in conversations, and no conversation is too small. Even if nobody remembers me for what I did, I hope they remember me fondly for how I made them feel, which is like they are the most important person in the room to me no matter who they are. 

I'll respond more to your particular questions as time permits, but your sharing about what you're dealing with moved me and I appreciate the opportunity to respond. 

Until next time,

-Max