"Chase your dream, and be yourself because life is a choice"
This kind of phrase is popular since the raise of Yuppies Generation.
I was born in 1993. I grow up by the hand of my father (and almost without a mother presence). My father was born in the post-war and post-depression era, which means he was living in an economically, socially and politically stable family. In my point of view, he is one of those happiness-seeker yuppy who doesn't really want what his parents had have achieved: a stable economy and career situation. He seeks for things beyond that. And I, am raised by my father's philosophy. Which means, I grow up in the post-anti-system era or I see it as progressive modernism, and of course, the progressive pop culture (Superficially, pop culture is often described as practical-driven culture, where we see something for its mundane usage. That's probably how young people become materialistic and always feel in a materially-lack condition.).
If that so, does that mean I'm a generation beyond all the current concepts and living in a situation where all social concepts are getting obsolete? But however, I guess every concept is contemporary and fluxing. And becoming very individual.
Well, back to the cheesy "chase your dream" phrase. It's everywhere. It's written by the mediocre blogger, it's posted in every instagram photograps' captions, it's in twitter feeds, it's in pop song sung by Audioslave, or if you are slightly an intellectual reader, it may be in your favorite classic literature, The Catcher In the Rye by J.D Salinger or inside the Sylvia Plath's lifestyle. And above all those mass culture activities, it's in a very private institution, a family, my parents even told me to "chase your dream". It's good of course but not anymore if it is too much. I'm becoming moral obesed. And because I'm overdose with moral, I'm becoming a delusional human who thinks I'm so special, in a matter of fact, all people in my generation think that they are special and the special term itself is now renewed as something normal. How sick.
But, without all those moral support, life would be so scary anyway. We are living among approximately 7.125 billion of other people. The competition to survive is becoming so brutal. People are all intellectual. Access to information is now an ease. As Oscar Wilde said, "You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people". You can be multibillingual, speak fluently in english, french and mandarin and still get your career flushed because everybody younger speak in 5 languages. With that scary fact, we tend to look for what actually distinguish ourselves to other so we can have the economic value or at least another form of value.
Well, if the problems are all because the economic motives, then the anecdote of go to school, go to college, choose business major, get straight A, have an internship and go get your career is probably the formula. But, what about "being yourself and chase your dream?" Getting straight A is definitely not my dream (probably because I'm too lazy to study for exam and being diligent is not my self at all. I can't do that for god sake, not my life!). Our dream is opaqued. It's not merely about the economic value anymore, it's beyond that, I guess (or it's an excuse because we're just too scared to join the economic competition).
What Bourdieu said about Cultural Capital is now at a rise, and that's how millenial living their life. As people who seek property in the cultural and intellectual matters, the system of economic motives are getting obsolete. Becoming rich is too mainstream now. That's probably the root of hipster lifestyle. (Seriously, I wasn't point out the so-called hipster with their ignorance behavior nor as the pejorative term referring to the so-called poseur. You probably need to check the definition, since Wikipedia is now provide it here.)
Don't judge the millenial for being hipster. Reading indoprogress and Tempo articles as well as reading Nylon magazine. Buying chiffon blouses in a thrift shop, wearing mom's old jeans and still go to the H&M. Window shopping at the mall but end up making their own clothes and post it to the instagram. I must admit that I am one of those. I live in between the popular culture and how the world tells me to be my self and chase my dream, and more importantly to be clever. It's confusing you know (wow, such a spoiled ignorant kid). But, without point out what is wrong or what is right, being delusional (hipster) is probably the best for me. I'm not raised in a economically stable family, like my father who raised me. I'm not raised to pursue only economic and social motives but also the cultural motives. I tend to seek for things beyond the old formula to have a my own value. I'm sorry for being so delusional. But don't we grow to hate the status quo? Probably most of my friends who study the social sciences think so, don't you guys?
As a delusional human I am probably allowed to say that this may be a revolutionary of poverty. Poverty is not anymore about the lack of material possession, it's more about the lack of intellectual and cultural power. Maybe that's the answer of poverty problem. People will not only appreciate things by its economic value but see things more open. By easing the information access, people will enjoy being clever and forget about only material possession and live happily ever after.
What a shallow writing from a hipstercrite.
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