the life of the mind in the 21st century

When I was younger, I absorbed a lot of advice on what it meant to “grow up.” A lot of this advice was useful, like how to apply for jobs, cultivate friendships, throw a party, and cook for myself. But there a particular kind of well-meaning advice that I hated receiving, and it usually went like this. I’d describe what my ideal world looked like—or my ideal lifestyle—and someone would say, You need to grow up and realize that you can’t always get what you want. The real world doesn’t work that way.They weren’t trying to be cruel; they were trying to save me from disappointment. “Growing up,” to them, meant internalizing the sad—and necessary—reality that certain ideals were childish and impractical, and you had to give up on them in order to live correctly.Inside of you there are two swans. One is cheerfully resistant to cynicism and slightly detached from reality. The other swan soberly reads the news each morning and is extremely aware of everything that could go wrong. (Hilma af…

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