Michael Greenwald
This morning, while on the pot, (I washed my hands, I promise) I read an interesting profile in Rolling Stone about Jamie Tworkowski, the teen-suicide-Internet-sensation, and founder of TWLOHA, a non-profit organization committed to providing an Internet outlet for suicidal teens. His approach to extending a digital hand out to troubled teens has rocked the stately (and some would say archaic) institution of teen suicide prevention, consisting of stuffy psychiatrists in even stuffier offices or mental hospitals with padded doors doling a litany of pills.
Jamie Tworkowski has focused on love and faith and showing kids they aren’t alone in the world, through his TWLOHA website and Myspace page, and now at speeches at schools and community centers. In the high school world, he’s viewed as a messiah/rock star, some combination of a Jonas Brother and Jesus.
What struck me in this article, though, was a line of dialogue he used at the end: “I want things to be epic. And everyday life isn’t epic.”
Jamie’s a bit younger than I am, but this line cut me to the core (and almost made me fall off the pot), because I claim to be a writer and this surfer turned teen-angst guru found the words to express how I feel about my life and my expectations for life. I, of course, being the 30-something, would never use the word epic to describe my dilemma, me being so not cool it’s rather embarrassing, but the way Jamie boiled down his mental struggle everyday was precisely how I feel.
I want things to be epic (colossal, monumental, tremendous) but everyday is not epic. In fact, every week is not epic, most months are not epic, looking back I’ve lived years that weren’t epic. So what do you when your expectation for life is on an epic level? And, where in the hell did we learn to expect this from life?
I see life as a runner on a treadmill. Life is in decent shape, looks to run a couple times a week, and is handling Level 5 quite well. Then we turn up the Level to 6 and Life continues along, pumping it’s arms, puffing a bit, but still steady. Then we turn the dial to 27 and Life looks at us like we are crazy before spinning off the rolling exercise machine.
Everyday I wake up with a feeling that something special can happen. I think this is probably a common mindset for humanity throughout time. I’m assuming cavemen woke up with thoughts of downing a wooly mammoth that afternoon. Humans are strivers, always have been, always will be, our imaginations stretch the possibility, turn the level of that life treadmill up a notch or two, but my generation grew up on television, with movies, and I’ll admit to the fact that I grew up understanding relationships (because I didn’t have a strong example at home) through Dylan and Kelly on 90210. I knew that 90210 was a television show, wasn’t real, but still, I wanted to be Dylan McKay. I wanted to be with Kelly. And maybe at some point the lines of reality and fantasy might have gotten crossed to where I expected that type of passion, that type of intensity in my relationships. My relationship expectations grew to epic proportions. And real life events can live up to those expectations, can they; no, Life spins off the treadmill trying to keep up.
I find myself constantly disappointed, and I never really knew why until I read that quote by Jamie Tworkowski, ironically, the leader of a movement focusing on reaching out to teens contemplating suicide, doing drugs, drinking, possible struggling with the disparity between fantastical expectations for the world and themselves and the reality, factors that Jamie Tworkowski himself struggles with, and I do too.
Maybe the linchpin of all this disappointment stems with the desire for today to live up to epic expectations and the impossibility of the real world to keep up with our imaginations.
Who the hell knows.
SleepSunshine 