Let Me Just Check My Schedule

To those of you who are on study break right now -- can't you just feel it drawing ever closer and closer? The reinstatement of the university routine after its temporary hiatus, that is. Intimidating, isn't it? Well, if you hadn't thought about it until now, I have now got you thinking. I apologise profusely for burdening you with the concept that significantly unenjoyable circumstance this way comes. But it pays to think about things like this beforehand as it may well ease the transition. Always prepare for the worst, and you will not be disappointed when the worst inevitably eventuates. Well, you will not be as disappointed, at least. Trust me -- it works. I think.

I can already feel it all creeping back into the picture. Part of the beauty of the holidays is that you are able to cast off the usual structure of your life and engage in some reasonably freeform activity. It feels wonderful at the start. There is the potential for you to feel like you have relatively no cares in the world, in comparison to when you have that usual heap of cynicism dumped on top of you by the dehumanisation imposed by modern life. You organise and participate in activities in an impromptu manner, as opposed to cramming it between Politics lectures (throughout which you listen to your CD player anyway) or wage labour shifts. Time seems immaterial; sprawled out before you, you possibly have a totally blank canvas of two whole weeks.

However, once it becomes clear that the activities that you engage in during the holidays are taking on some kind of structural pattern, the holidays will start to piece themselves together over the scaffolding of a daily grind of their own. This usually becomes particularly apparent in the second week of the typical short break, and it's this time at which people such as myself start complaining that the holidays have let them down, and in some cases even wishing for a hasty return to the university routine despite the fact that they know they are not going to like going back. In this particular case for me, by the middle of the second week the impromptu nature of the first week has disappeared, and just about all activities now take place according to set times.

It's basically evident that, as long as we live within the constraints of time, scheduling and structure are always going to be an issue. Whatever day-to-day lifestyle that we attempt to live, it is in all cases eventually going to assume some sort of humdrum, linear and unprogressive form that will leave us dissatisfied and seeking transition to another lifestyle. This would appear to me to be one of the driving forces behind consumer society, as it "encourages" people to strive to achieve the most free (in many cases the most opulent) lifestyle. In an ironic twist, consumer society actually reinforces routine through the wage labour system, thus ensuring that humanity -- as well as the individuals within it -- will never, never be truely satisfied.

I think that the following poem sums up my feelings on the self-perpetuating cycle encompassing routine and status anxiety quite well. Indeed, I believe that it can be applied to our entire worldy existences. It's called Q and it was written by Roger McGough:

I join the queue
We move up nicely.

I ask the lady in the front
What are we queuing for.
'To join another queue,'
She explains.

'How pointless,' I say,
'I'm leaving.' She points
To another long queue.
'Then you must get in line.'

I join the queue.
We move up nicely.