When I was young, I knew everything.
When I was young, I argued with theories. I thought that my intelligence was the weight of the argument. There was the compulsion to drop name after name, theoretical concept after theoretical concept. I argued with the contempt and impunity that can only come from someone not old enough to be proven wrong. I was on a mission to prove to the world that I am right, and everything in it is wrong, stupid, and idiotic. Big words, too; words that, from the perspective of a youthful version of me, can summarize – and solve – the problems of the national Gessellschaft.
Then I grew old enough to take up a job. After three or so years of writing copy and etching a name for myself in the glass walls of multinationals and transnationals – from newspapers to BPO to advertising – I realized that I only “knew everything” when I was young. In the brave new world, beyond the shelter of the Geisteswissenschaften and the arguments of privilege that came with a chair in the classroom and a book from the library, there are some things I realized.
