8 years ago, I was living with Mom in Warner Robins and attending my freshman year (spring quarter) at Macon State College for IT. Obama was about to be sworn into office as the 44th president. Connie still lived off Armour Road next to the North Columbus Library. We drove back and forth to take care of her two kids when she was at work. It wasn’t a banner year for me, but I was adapting to Macon State and enjoying a lot of the classes. Computers were big in my life. Net neutrality was a major topic on forums. Bittorrent was my primary means of watching movies.
4 years later, I was in my final semester of college. Obama was about to be sworn in for the next half of his presidency. While I was driving back and forth from Macon to Fort Benning to help take care of my sister Connie, I didn’t know what I was going to do with my degree. I was serving as president of the MGSU GSA, hustling my business cards to people in order to do some paid web design work, organizing LGBT awareness on campus, connecting to other GSAs in Macon. I wasn’t prepared for Connie dying of cancer in November, or for living full-time in the Columbus area.
Fast forward to now. I’ve worked as a political activist and web designer for a variety of clients. LGBT peoples’ freedoms have increased by quite a bit and technology has come to envelope more of our homes and bodies, while African Americans have seen police brutality exposed on web video to a mind-numbing extent and trans people are murdered and harassed by lawmakers. I saw an election which sought the participation of a weary nation, and I worked for the more progressive candidates (Bernie, then Hillary and Jim). They lost, and now a man who is sought by his followers for excitement and free-market nationalism about their country will come into office.
But I don’t know how much I’ve grown. I’ve gained much more non-collegiate experience than I could have ever gained in Macon/Warner Robins, but I’m still asked if I’m a CSU student by Columbus residents. 4 years after graduation, I still feel like I’m on extended work-study in college. 4 years later, I’m still not able to capture that feeling of “tech is making us better people” that I felt when taking on the Communications degree in college. I bought deeply into the
In 4 years, I’ll be in my mid-30s. I honestly don’t know where or what I’ll be by then. I don’t know if social media will be more weaponized than it is now. I don’t know if this incoming president will resign in favor of his VP by then. I hazard to think that this Congress will do a lot of damage by then, worse than under Bush Junior when I was in high school. And our tech seems to be moving in a dystopic direction.
No one has an idea as to how to unfuck this trajectory. Everything is supposedly inevitable. Unions will continue to die, global warming will continue, martial law will be declared in Black urban neighborhoods like Chicago, mass murders by gun will get worse, more anti-LGBT and anti-minimum wage increase laws will be enacted at the state level.
And I don’t know where I’ll be by then, in this dystopia.
Maybe I should take on some more student debt and go back to school. Maybe I left college at the wrong time.
