pessimistic-conundrum

Every single word resonates with me in this quote—but especially what I’ve bolded. 

Amy Astley in an interview with The New York Times

Very relevant and applicable to running a newspaper staff (or any kind of staff) as well. 

noelduan:

I am deeply frustrated because my generation did not break this economy but every day, I see my peers working themselves to death trying to do everything possible to compensate. We’re told that it’s harder to find jobs in this economy so just-accept-this-unpaid-internship-and-move-back-home-with-mom-and-dad. We’re told that we’re ungrateful and lazy and unrealistic, but how can the older generation accuse us of these things when they tucked us into bed at night, telling us that we can be anything we want to be when we grow up?

I used to dream so big, but now I worry more than I dream. I tell myself that education will change everything, but I see so many 20-somethings who are overeducated and underpaid.

My eyes glaze over when adults lecture me about my unrealistic expectations and my “petty” dreams. The way I see it, I did not ruin this economy. I am not to blame for this economy. And I, like so many of my peers, am just trying to hold onto those childhood dreams and hopes. When did “you can be anything you want to be” become “you are not good enough”?

fightingz:

I swallow a good deal of criticism daily. From my parents, my peers, and most harshly, myself.

But when people come to me and question why I want to do this or that — why I want to pursue photography, or why I want to get a tattoo of certain lyrics — I get outraged.

No, I will not tell you what I’m planning on getting tattooed, or where, or why it’s so important to me. You’d better not be expecting me to open up about photography and my ideal career path, either.

You can take your judgmental ass somewhere else, because frankly, I’m sick of this shit. I’m sick of being judged no matter what I want to do or who I choose to tell about it. You don’t know me, and you never will. So shut the fuck up, keep your pride to yourself, and lead your cookie-cutter life. I hope you despise it.

Props girl. I got you.

may have killed the cat; more likely
the cat was just unlucky, or else curious
to see what death was like, having no cause
to go on licking paws, or fathering
litter on litter of kittens, predictably.

Nevertheless, to be curious
is dangerous enough. To distrust
what is always said, what seems
to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,
leave home, smell rats, have hunches
do not endear cats to those doggy circles
where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches
are the order of things, and where prevails
much wagging of incurious heads and tails.
Face it. Curiosity
will not cause us to die—
only lack of it will.
Never to want to see
the other side of the hill
or that improbable country
where living is an idyll
(although a probable hell)
would kill us all.
Only the curious
have, if they live, a tale
worth telling at all.

Dogs say cats love too much, are irresponsible,
are changeable, marry too many wives,
desert their children, chill all dinner tables
with tales of their nine lives.
Well, they are lucky. Let them be
nine-lived and contradictory,
curious enough to change, prepared to pay
the cat price, which is to die
and die again and again,
each time with no less pain.
A cat minority of one
is all that can be counted on
to tell the truth. And what cats have to tell
on each return from hell
is this: that dying is what the living do,
that dying is what the loving do,
and that dead dogs are those who do not know
that dying is what, to live, each has to do.

-Alastair Reid

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