muckefuck: (Default)
muckefuck ([personal profile] muckefuck) wrote2004-02-18 02:28 pm

Portrait of Da in gray

Last night, it occurred to me that, if it hadn't been for the 60's, I wouldn't feel guilty that I spend so much time indulging my personal hobbies rather than working on Saving The World.

Then it occurred to that, if it hadn't been for the 60's, I'd be working myself to death at a job in the family business, which I hate, in order to provide for my neglected wife and three repressed children.

The worst part of this musing was the realisation that, in my socially irresponsible pursuit of pleasure, the decade I'm most a child of is the 70's.

[identity profile] febrile.livejournal.com 2004-02-18 12:45 pm (UTC)(link)
the decade I'm most a child of is the 70's.

I'd like to say that I think the same is true of me, but make it the 1770s. But that would be not only geeky, but also pretentious, atavistic, and generally silly; the kind of thing one might hear on a college campus or a gun show and, in either place, said by someone who elicits sighs and the turning of backs.

Guess that makes me a de factor child of the 60s, huh? I have, in my defense, developed a reasonable fear of would-be World Savers and discovered that the world is pretty good at turning, and all signs point to its continuing to do so.

Still, I miss activism. Optimistic fatalism's less fun.

Re:

[identity profile] febrile.livejournal.com 2004-02-18 02:56 pm (UTC)(link)
I really should read over anything I ever write in LiveJournal to deal with the typos. I've said this before; this time, for sure.

[identity profile] snowy-owlet.livejournal.com 2004-02-18 01:53 pm (UTC)(link)
A therapist told me once that my destiny is to "be happy." It's so embarrassing. Where's the noble sacrifice? Where's the world-changing, crushing labor of the spirit?

It can't really be that easy.

Hey!

[identity profile] sconstant.livejournal.com 2004-02-18 02:01 pm (UTC)(link)
If it hadn't been for the 60's, I'd wouldn't be working myself to death at a job, I'd be home, neglected, with three repressed children. Maybe we dated in the but-for-the-60's universe!

[identity profile] muckefuck.livejournal.com 2004-02-18 02:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Don't think it hasn't occurred to me...

From time to time, I imagine what my life would've been like in other places in times. Since, in most of those, I would've been quite likely to end up in an opposite-sex marriage, I've thought about who might have been my wife. If I'd been lucky, it would've been someone smart, engaging, and sexy who I could've gone years without cheating on.

[identity profile] sconstant.livejournal.com 2004-02-18 02:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Or someone smart and engaging who would understand and be ok with your "outside interests" and deal somehow. I figure there were some of those floating around, even if very few. We're talking about "lucky" here, not "probable."

I actually think I would have done surprisingly well as June Cleaver, though I might have gone to the library more than she did. I guess I can't judge since life has turned out so differently, but I always felt I might have read The Feminine Mystique and been sympathetic but not awakened. May have to do with my overarching optimism and self-satisfaction, and would also have been highly dependent on having received a lucky draw in the husband sweepstakes.

S.

Re:

[identity profile] bunj.livejournal.com 2004-02-18 02:47 pm (UTC)(link)
From time to time, I imagine what my life would've been like in other places in times.

Hmm... I mostly imagined you cloistered somewhere happily pouring through old tomes and shagging someone very much like [livejournal.com profile] monshu. Of course that's in Much Older Times than the '60s. What makes me shudder is what would have happened to our older brother in any other time.