Patrick Anderson Jr.
I’m a video game nerd. Matter of fact, I’m just a nerd in general. Movies, comic books, novels, computers, the whole nine. Video games are up there though, and when I was in college it was all about Guitar Hero. I had a girlfriend at the time who I used to play against all the time, and I consistently whooped her ass every time (because I’m awesome at it [shrug]).
One day I beat her, as usual, and I was being really cocky about it. Just an ass. She got pissed and told me I was acting like I knew how to play a real guitar. And me, being me, I’m like, “Challenge accepted.”
So I went out and bought an acoustic guitar and proceeded to use Youtube to teach myself how to play (whether or not I became any good is still up for debate).
As far as Quarter Life Crisis goes, that incident made me realize something I hadn’t really thought about before: my generation--all my friends and acquaintances--we don’t know how to do anything. We grow up, and we’re taught to read, to write, study, get good grades, maybe play a sport or two, join some clubs, graduate, go to college, study some more, graduate again, then get a job. If we’re lucky. But none of that is really knowing how to do anything. A skill. Something we have to put our mind to and learn, just for the sake of learning how to do it. Something we can look at other people and say, “hey, I can do that,” and they look back at you and say “Wow, that’s cool” and they’re not just being a sarcastic prick.
So that was the initial inspiration for this short comedy story I wrote about a guy who goes to buy a guitar with his best friend and tells him that it can’t be much harder than playing Guitar Hero (which anybody who’s ever played Guitar Hero and subsequently picked up a guitar can tell you is total bullshit).
At the same time though, I was in graduate school, trying to figure out what to write for my thesis, studying my ass off, teaching, working at a restaurant, and basically teaching myself how to survive on the minimum amount of sleep (which is actually one of the most valuable things I learned while I was there). But this was around the time I started asking that question every college student I’ve ever known has asked themselves at some point: what now? I was a year from graduation, no plan other than to come up with a plan at some point, and no aspirations other than this: My writing. I was aimless, indecisive, borderline manic-depressive, and it all sort of came together in that moment, this initial idea that our generation doesn’t have any actual real-world skills, and this secondary idea that our generation is only prepared for school and nothing else.
Hence, Quarter Life Crisis
One day I beat her, as usual, and I was being really cocky about it. Just an ass. She got pissed and told me I was acting like I knew how to play a real guitar. And me, being me, I’m like, “Challenge accepted.”
So I went out and bought an acoustic guitar and proceeded to use Youtube to teach myself how to play (whether or not I became any good is still up for debate).
As far as Quarter Life Crisis goes, that incident made me realize something I hadn’t really thought about before: my generation--all my friends and acquaintances--we don’t know how to do anything. We grow up, and we’re taught to read, to write, study, get good grades, maybe play a sport or two, join some clubs, graduate, go to college, study some more, graduate again, then get a job. If we’re lucky. But none of that is really knowing how to do anything. A skill. Something we have to put our mind to and learn, just for the sake of learning how to do it. Something we can look at other people and say, “hey, I can do that,” and they look back at you and say “Wow, that’s cool” and they’re not just being a sarcastic prick.
So that was the initial inspiration for this short comedy story I wrote about a guy who goes to buy a guitar with his best friend and tells him that it can’t be much harder than playing Guitar Hero (which anybody who’s ever played Guitar Hero and subsequently picked up a guitar can tell you is total bullshit).
At the same time though, I was in graduate school, trying to figure out what to write for my thesis, studying my ass off, teaching, working at a restaurant, and basically teaching myself how to survive on the minimum amount of sleep (which is actually one of the most valuable things I learned while I was there). But this was around the time I started asking that question every college student I’ve ever known has asked themselves at some point: what now? I was a year from graduation, no plan other than to come up with a plan at some point, and no aspirations other than this: My writing. I was aimless, indecisive, borderline manic-depressive, and it all sort of came together in that moment, this initial idea that our generation doesn’t have any actual real-world skills, and this secondary idea that our generation is only prepared for school and nothing else.
Hence, Quarter Life Crisis
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