A few days ago, Erik shot me a quick joke about a friend of his going through a "quarter-life crisis." Today, I started talking with Tara about the topics of how overqualified and underpaid recent graduates are, how unsatisfied and insecure everyone is about their futures, etc. etc. The beginning of said conversation went something like this: [13:17] Me: i want my midlife crisis now [13:17] Me: so i can figure out what i want to do and do it [13:18] Tara: lolol [13:18] Tara: i think we're hitting out quarter life crisis [13:18] Tara: and it is equally as important, if not as well known In the midst of the confusion often caused by online conversations, I thought she was being completely serious. This led to an immediate web search on my part, and after exchanging a few links, we reached our conclusion: "holy shit its real!!" And rather well documented at that: There is a fairly detailed (albeit debatably accurate or neutral) Wikipedia page on the phenomenon, as well as Boston Globe, ABC, BBC, Telegraph, and Times articles most of which were written over four years ago. Following one of the links from the wikipedia site also leads to an anonymous and eerily accurate account of my life at the moment.  For those of you too lazy to read it all, read it. I would summarize it for you, but if you've read this far, you probably know the feeling just as well as I do. My biggest question: why didn't anyone tell me about this earlier?? I'm guessing since most of these articles refer people in their mid to late 20s, us college student have been left out of the loop. But everybody knows that the world is only pushing us to be mature earlier and earlier, and I already see so many of my peers walking around with clear symptoms of quarter-life crisis. Forget the swine flu. This epidemic has already hit us, we just never saw it coming. One fine lass has capitalized on this opportunity and started quarterlifecrisis.com and has written 2 books on the topic already. Meanwhile the rest of us sit here in our pre-grad depression trying to stay in school as long as possible before the "real-life" hits. Multiple factors seem to be at play in the cause of this widespread crisis. Reasons cited for our increased insecurity include: the very competitive job market, student debt and just debt in general, high expectations for love and work, and most importantly: the great promise of opportunity. Barry Schwartz makes the convincing argument in his TED talk about how "choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied." I couldn't agree more. On many days I often wish I was born less priviledged with less choices so I wouldn't be so stressed out about making the "right" one. A treatment for your illness? Nobody has a clear answer, and it is most likely dependent on the person. However, I personally would say forget what society thinks, and just do what you do. For support, remind your closest friends to do the same. We're all in this together after all. Forget the world that tells us that these life decisions are critical to our futures and our success, because in today's world, it's simply not true. You may fail today and succeed tomorrow, only to fail again the day after. Does it really matter in the end? I think not. My favorite quote from Charlie Wilson's War goes as follows

There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful. the boy got a horse" And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later The boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "how terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight... except the boy can't cause his legs all messed up. and everybody in the village says, "How wonderful." Now the Zen master says, "We'll see." 

So fuck what the village says. Do what you want. You'll be alright. -v

ok, so apparently I'm on a roll here for communications advice. I don't think I should be allowed to do this given my background and experience... but whatever, I'll try to keep it short. here goes.

1. structure and direction. outline!
I think this is the most common thing I see among people my age who write. They just seem to sit down and write. That's it. As if they just move their pencils around on the paper (or press the keys on the keyboard) the right things will just flow right out in the right order and context to make perfect sense to the reader. This applies to powerpoints too, I've seen grad students just sit down, add info to slides sequentially, and come back later wondering why it doesnt fit the time allotment and doesn't convey the intended message. What do I like to tell them? Outline! I personally like to push the outline simply because it forces you to think big picture, and ask yourself in the important questions. What's the point of this paper/presentation? What message(s) do I want the reader/audience to walk away with? How can I best do that? Good writing and presentations don't just naturally flow and spew from the minds of their creaters. Even the best writers and presenters have direction, they may be able to improvise their words from what appears to be nothing, or write an essay from beginning to end with seemingly no direction at all, but that's simply what professionals do. They make things look easy. The truth is, every paper and presentation has a purpose, or direction, whether explicitly outlined or not. Not even the pros and the experts can create a good piece of writing, or make a good presentation without direction. So until you reach that level, make an outline! Or at the very least have a very good sense of your direction, purpose, and the big picture.
2. making every word count (good and bad ways to bs)
The second thing that bothers me most about some people's writing is the excessive use of filler words. Words that simply do not add any useful information whatsoever to the writing. Now I realize with the word requirements on so many of todays papers and essays really push some people to the point of BS-ing. Now ideally, of course, BS-ing should be avoided at all costs, because it simply is adding filler words, statements, phrases, and whatever you can come up with to make the paper look beefier, longer, with more content. But as they say, quality over quantity. If you can say in one word what it takes others 10 words to say, I think that's an exercise in great efficiency, and should be rewarded as such. I'm not saying to reduce all your writing to its bare bones. I'm just saying, make sure every word counts. This means that every word should add something to the paper, and it simply would not be the same without it. This can be both emotional content such as adding voice, tone, depth, and feeling to the paper; or more scientific content such as facts, numbers, citations, and the simple subject/verb requirements of each sentence. At a certain point, good BS is not BS anymore, it simply becomes good writing. Good BS is knowing how to add words that significantly increase the content, meaning and feeling of a piece, driving it closer to its intended purpose and effect. So become a good writer, and you will naturally be a "good BS-er."
3. lack of voice/reading from the script
Finally, a point that I more or less touched on in my last entry, be yourself! Too many times people get caught up so much in the rules, they start talking like robots. As Ira Glass says, "Everything is more compelling when you talk like a human being, when you talk like yourself." This fact cannot be more important in creating a great and compelling piece of writing, or a good presentation. If you just be yourself, get comfortable with the things you write or say, people will be comfortable reading it. If you write or read a piece like you're locked in the confines of the "rules", your readers and listeners will feel it as well. There is no better way to be convincing, than to simply be honest. If you're a casual person, talk casually. If you like to be quick and get to the point, then do it. If you like to be elegant and flowery, you can do that too. The rules aren't there to hinder your style and your voice, the rules are there to make your voice stronger, better, more effective than it was before. Let the rules be guidelines to help you improve your own voice, but do not let them take it over. With speaking, this is a little easier to do. I almost never write out my speeches, a detailed outline suffices. As long as you know your content enough to talk about it naturally, then just do it. Have an outline to remind you of what topics you want to cover, and that's it.

okay, enough of my rants... i'm tired of writing now. see ya round. -v

I am far from a good writer. At least in my own opinion. Although I've gotten As in AP english, done reasonably well on the AP tests, and people have told me things here and there... well for one, I haven't written in forever. I think/hope writing this blog will help me improve those skills. But every once in a while I do get cocky and feel the need to offer some advice to some people who are just not very good at this whole writing thing. (including myself) This includes myself of course. It is pretty safe to say that my writing skills have most definitely atrophied in the past few years through the rigorous math & science centered engineering curriculum. So, back on topic. Writing is an art and a science. Bear in mind that in my ideal world there is no separation between the two. Art would not exist without science and science would not be what it is without art. This applies perfectly to writing, as most everything else. As one of my college professors likes to say "once you know the rules, you can break them." I like to think of that as an analogy of sorts, the science behind the art is the set of 'rules' that govern writing. These rules range from the details of punctuation and grammar, to word use, sentence structure, style, voice, paragraph structure, all the way up to layout and appearance if you'd like. Meanwhile, the art is how a writer chooses to follow or not follow these rules, or bend them to their will. So within this lies the hardest concept to grasp: You must know the rules to write well. And the seemingly contradictory addition: you (almost always) must break the rules to write well. Some people grasp this concept very easily, while others are utterly confused. Allow me to make an analogy with the common phrase "coloring within the lines." Taking the phrase very literally, let's imagine that you give a group of 1st graders a page of a coloring book with a house on it and tell them to color it in. If they all colored in the lines, you would ideally have multiple copies of the same house. If everyone followed the rules exactly, they would be like machines or computers, completing the same set of tasks and instructions they were given, exactly as they were given. Now consider the opposite, if you gave a group of kids blank pieces of paper which is essentially like telling them to ignore the lines altogether, you would most likely get a mess of everything. You'd be lucky if you had one house among all of them, and you would potentially have many pieces of paper with scribbles of random colors, or simply kids who don't want to color, and give you that blank paper back. Now you can call this creativity, or as I would call it, just plain anarchy. Reality of course, lies somewhere in the grey area in between. If you give each 1st grader a house to color, each one will come back different. Each piece of paper will contain, to some degree, the personality of the child who colored it. You will be able to see when and how they stayed in the lines or crossed them, maybe by choice, and maybe by accident. By now you're asking, "so? how is that relevant?" The point is, that true creativity and good writing comes from both the existence of rules, and the will to break them. I see too many writers today in either of 2 categories:

1. those who believe that simply learning the rules will make you a good writer. they stick to the rules strictly, and end up writing blandly, generically, like a machine
2. those who believe there are no rules to good writing, and those who are gifted and creative will simply be good writers. they end up writing crazily, with no structure, no direction, no rules, like an animal with no bones.

Those in the first category need to remember that the rules are there to be broken. Writing is a form of expression, like the fashion you choose, and the hairstyle you have. Make sure you own it and show yourself in it, don't get so caught up in the rules that you become just another mechanical voice. Break the rules, and break them with a passion. Think outside the box, color outside the lines, it makes you, you. And for those who break the rules with great passion, do not forget that there are rules. Don't forget all those concepts such as outlining, word choice, sentence structure, having an intro and a conclusion, etc. etc. These rules are there because generally they are correct. There are very few exceptions to times you can write well without an outline, or create a cohesive statement without an introduction and conclusion. But generally, the rules are  a very good guideline to follow. So, remember that you cannot think outside the box if there is no box, and you cannot color outside the lines if you don't see the lines. Finding the right balance between these two concepts is the hardest part. To realize when to respect and follow the rules of writing as a science, meanwhile, exploiting these rules and creating your own voice, as an artist. I believe this search for balance is realistically never-ending, as the balance shifts in response to the writers tastes, the change in audience, and changes in the views and opinions of the times. For the few that read this, know that I wrote this more as a reminder to myself than anything else, but if you made it this far, I hope you liked it and it wasn't a waste of your time. Write on! -v