Reality Check

With graduation coming up, I find myself wondering about the "real world"--what are people like out in the "real world"?

I had a great holiday weekend, part of which was spent at the gun range, which is always an interesting experience, mostly because I am secretly rather proud of the fact that I can say I have shot an AR15 at orange buckets in an old quarry. This shooting range is definitely outside the Chicago metro area, where I am no longer just a few blocks from the Obama residence and there's a big sign that says "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." That's actually a bad example of a "difference" between me and the rest of Illinois because I actually agree with that sign... but work with me here. Southern Illinois does feel kind of foreign--not "real" almost. Like whoa. But of course it is real...

Then there are the more generally the types people who make me want graduation to come yesterday so I won't have to deal with them anymore. Because obviously, people in the "real world" will be more mature:

I can hold a party without worrying about people breaking my stuff (because I'll never have kids/ be friends with people with kids... and adults are above breaking things and getting drunk, and they always take their shoes, coats and idiocy off at the door).

I won't have to hold anyone's hand to try to set up a meeting or accomplish group tasks (because people will magically learn how to communicate without being arrogant, self-important, flaky or otherwise obnoxiously clueless about how things function... especially in Peru, where I've been told everything takes twice as long to coordinate as I would expect).

I will also never again walk into the kitchen, look at the sink, and want to yell, "You have to rinse the sink out! It looks like somebody threw up in there!".... exactly like my dad seems to do on an almost weekly basis at home.... wait a second...

So basically I am going to keep putting the words "real world" into quotes. People are not going to change. I am not going to change in a lot of ways, either. In short, the "real world" doesn't really exist? Human nature does not magically change just because I have a diploma.

But even knowing that, I still have the feeling that everything is going to change as soon as I throw that absurd hat into the air. I am definitely leaving a University bubble and heading off to another continent--of course everything is going to change! But I can't think of a single thing that will be entirely altered on some fundamental level. There are people who fit into society and function according to various social and economic processes, which they themselves shape. We perpetually run in that circle, in different ways but fundamentally it is somehow the same. Time goes on.

So what's going to change? My gut still says everything, but since that is entirely contrary to all of the logic I've outlined, I'll have to come back to this musing once I have lived in the "real world" for a bit, if that ever happens.