My Worst Nightmare
Facebook does serve a function after all. I was doing my usual check for birthdays and other updates today, when I noticed a blog post from one of my old frosh advisees. Apparently he went on to become a crazy homeless person. (One who's crazy enough to write about it on facebook and try to "explain" what happened to him.) I couldn't follow the whole story, since I was jumping in media re, but it seems like it all started when his parents had him institutionalized - likely his interpretation of rehab, because he mentioned something about drugs. After that, he lived in a halfway house and played guitar on the streets because his bum-like appearance kept him from getting any jobs, Stansbury resume or no. He disappeared for a while again, he says, and his parents flew out from Mississippi to throw him back into the looney bin when he decided to stop eating. He said he wanted to see what it's like because so many religions mandate it.
I'm conflicted about how I feel about his whole story. Let's start with the obvious: I'm smug because my worst fear is that I'll become a raving homeless person, and yet I've managed to dodge that fate (so far) even though I'm just a big a pessimist as my Homeless Frosh. I also feel vindicated because conventional wisdom says that young educated people just don't become bums like that - at least until much later in life, when Alzheimers kicks in. Clearly, I was right and they were wrong: we are always on the precipice of homelessness and degradation.
Second response: irritation that he's being such a goddamn spoiled infant about this. Stopped eating because he wanted to see what it's like? That has "self-important college douche" written all over it! Homeless Frosh continues to insist that he's not crazy, that he's just being introspective and unconventional. If that's true, he should stop crying out for all that attention. If it isn't true, he should entertain the thought that maybe the experts know more about this stuff than he does, and just take their meds already.
Third: some sympathy. I've often imagined what it'd be like to see my life flush down slowly, and I understand how things unfold in a one-thing-led-to-another kind of way, and it's not always easy to put a halt to things even if you want to. But for the grace of God, I too could be a raving homeless person.
I'm conflicted about how I feel about his whole story. Let's start with the obvious: I'm smug because my worst fear is that I'll become a raving homeless person, and yet I've managed to dodge that fate (so far) even though I'm just a big a pessimist as my Homeless Frosh. I also feel vindicated because conventional wisdom says that young educated people just don't become bums like that - at least until much later in life, when Alzheimers kicks in. Clearly, I was right and they were wrong: we are always on the precipice of homelessness and degradation.
Second response: irritation that he's being such a goddamn spoiled infant about this. Stopped eating because he wanted to see what it's like? That has "self-important college douche" written all over it! Homeless Frosh continues to insist that he's not crazy, that he's just being introspective and unconventional. If that's true, he should stop crying out for all that attention. If it isn't true, he should entertain the thought that maybe the experts know more about this stuff than he does, and just take their meds already.
Third: some sympathy. I've often imagined what it'd be like to see my life flush down slowly, and I understand how things unfold in a one-thing-led-to-another kind of way, and it's not always easy to put a halt to things even if you want to. But for the grace of God, I too could be a raving homeless person.
posted by Rex at 1:16 PM
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