Those graduation articles

They run them every year - quite possibly the same exact ones - in just about every newspaper and magazine. The 'advice for the new college grad' column, in which some two-bit journalist coughs up a bunch of hackneyed advice about how you should do what you love, and travel the world, and wear sunscreen, and do things that scare you, and Always Follow Your Dreams.

Speaking, for the first time, as a member of the allegedly targeted audience*, I would like to comment on these articles, and say: SHUT UP.

What's that? You think I should follow my dreams and work to live not live to work, and travel abroad? I'd love to, really. I'd also love to get a job doing what I love. But you know what? Your generation did everything they could to destroy the American economy because you followed your dreams of having a charmless McMansion in suburban upstate New York and two cars. While I was sitting in 10th grade history you guys were eating KFC and cheering our honor killings in Afghanistan, and when I was deciding what college to go to you were half-heartedly wondering if this war against Iraq was really a good idea. And as I was doing what you've said I should do - follow my heart, do things that move me, get a degree in something I like rather than something immediately profitable - you were giggling as you engaged in the Sisyphean task of using your credit card to buy crappy houses and make them unaffordable for those who really need affordable housing.

So. How about you all shut up with your incredibly pointless 'advice' for people who have yet to take a massive crap on society? Yes, I really would love to spend a year in Americorps, and I in fact have the opportunity to do so. But I also have spent almost forty thousand borrowed dollars on my degree, and those kind lenders would like that money back ASAP, so there are some obvious problems in spending the next year working for four hundred dollars a month.

How about, instead of annually masturbating about the Hope and Future Ahead, you all put that energy into making education affordable?

*Assuming that it's not just some writer who regrets his decisions in life talking to himself.

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Tangentially, crappy job market aside, I am unspeakably, unimaginably glad to have two weeks (to the day!) left at this school. It's been swell, but the swelling's gone down.