To Auth or Contemp or Conform?

Posted by carles | May 8, 2015 | 42 Comments

what-to-do
Email from Reader. Please help.

Carles,

I went to law school but I ended up in the middle of the employment pyramid working for a government agency. My work is mad isolating e.g. there are no cubicles in my office. Also every0ne i work with is a career-gal who is planning her wedding AKA her special day. I’m basically just pushing papers across a laminate wood desk from 9:00am-5:30pm listening to these shrews talk about Serial and the paper stock for their invites. (The hours are good tho and the pay is ok/good.

I inherited a fuckload of money right after I graduated law school. I’m considering quitting my job and funding a legit top-tier contemporary conformist lifestyle, like MFA-adjunct professor/mixologist. I do not know if I should do that or strive the fuck out for a more prestigious lawyer job with a corporate law firm and attempt to make it into the .1%. Maybe just resign myself to mainstream bureaucrat life with a chill & perhaps plump wife, season ticket plans, and nice vacations every 1.5 years?

What would you do if you could walk a mile in my shoes?

—Anonymous in D.C.

P.S. Do you know the construction where a person writes: “it is … and …and …” where the “ands” replace commas to give the author a tone of being breathless/overburdened with emotion and thereby leverage an authentic tone? i think this is a tic in many contemporary conformist writings

Does this guy ‘have it all’?
Should he start a drone_noise project?
Should he just stay at his job and ‘be happie’?
Should he pop out a kid and dress the kid in Contemporary Conformist looks?
If you are ‘smart’ and ‘educated’ should you just spend your time trying to make money?
Or is it more comfortable to convince yourself that you are an ‘artistic type’?
Should u spend ur time trying to mate with as many ppl as possible?
Or formulate a narrative around 1 person being the most meaningful?
If we all have 2 make money, should u just separate work & play?
Are Contemporary Conformist hangout spots/activities just places for post-young professionals to dump their money without qualifying for a mortgage?
Should we all just have a child and ‘shut up’ about ‘our problems’?
Do ‘nice vacations’ make u feel like u r ‘seeing’ ‘the world’?

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  • authcore2k15

    quit, and freelance.

    attaching ‘freelance’ to anything makes it much less contempoConformo sounding.

    ‘freelance lawyer’-i like the sound of that

    • http://www.twitter.com/macostarz macostarz

      freelancing = the career equivalent of auth? think u have a point sir

  • Bronello_Cucinelli

    hmm should i be an adult or a shiftless alt hmmmmm

  • http://www.twitter.com/macostarz macostarz

    Sounds like you’re not satisfied with the current state of your life.

    Since you are fortunate to have money, you actually have *options*(!):

    -if your job isn’t making you happy, quit
    -invest in the stock market / become a darknet drug lord (your choice)
    -get another, more economically-relevant degree… comp sci + UX + graphic design maybe? (fyi: school is cool again)
    -move to the West Coast (via best coast)
    -run for office (you already have a ‘financial cushion’, so you can hire outside consultants to take care of the ‘hard work’ and enjoy the good life of endless selfies with babies)
    -go abroad for the next 6 months, get lost, find yourself (time for an ayahuasca retreat?)

    It’s ‘now or never’: whatever it takes to avoid a career meltdown, personal breakdown, or CC identity crisis man

  • Jonathan

    Too bad this bro never had any true drives/passions/interests he could actually pursue. I fear a hard road lies ahead 4 him.

    • alexander

      lol too bad he never had any “true” “drives” “passions” “interests”

      • Jonathan

        Solid quote semantics

    • http://www.twitter.com/macostarz macostarz

      yes, he probs needs to stay up later (via “3am spiritual”): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AetL4m7TNEY

  • MetaJD

    Take shrooms and then ask yourself what are you really going to do with all the money you’d have as a 1%’er. It’s possible to be happy and successful on 25,000/year, let alone double or triple that. Eat healthy but balanced (fast food is okay if you eat after workouts), join a gym to release the testosterone that you don’t realize is making you feel constantly anxiety-ridden. Start looking around for hikes you can take, maybe even power line trails that act as trails that aren’t going to be pursued by anyone. Get in touch with your inner child again and realign yourself.

    There are two hard things, and they suck because having one makes the other really hard, but they are getting wealth to not worry about wealth and then gaining security so that you don’t feel the need to travel/spend money/get addicted/drown out your sorrows. Typically pursuing one negates the other but there is a balance.

    With an inheritance and a good career you should have some savings to allow yourself some ‘time off’ to slow down and focus on what’s going on (then again, that job sounds like you have had a lot of time to do that already). Utilize the teachings of Carles, of high-end culture and your intuition which already knows what you want to do. Your dream is to be a mixologist and not make all this fukcing money.

    Ask yourself: If you had 10 billion, what would you do? Would it REALLY make you happy? Play The Sims and customize a mansion and buy everything. Notice how empty it feels once you walk around? That’s what the upper class feels like all the time. They were all expecting SOMETHING, something that never came. Don’t put yourself in a place where you can’t even appreciate a hot tub or a nice hotel (because that’s your baseline). Instead, search within. Every voice in you that pops up

    “I should do this”

    “I Should walk over there”

    “I should go home now”

    “I want to stay out longer”

    ALWAYS listen to this voice. Gradually, it will lead you to your destiny (for realz). It’s one step at a time but eventually you’re 100 miles down the road and every step is sheer Nirvana.

  • dat_bro06

    How much is a {fuckload}? <- these curly brackets are very CC btw

    If a {fuckload} is enough such that you can finance a 'happier life 4 urself' with interest and/or equity returns (via dividends, appreciation), without eating into the principal —- build urself a little financial model bb — then maybe just quit and pc out.

    Even if not, keep in mind that when ur old, ur sex drive, appetite for adventure, general physical appearance and stamina, everything will be gravely diminished — it doesn't really matter if u R an old poor or an old 1% in almost every respect. Your life will be a cycle of comfortable habits, watching Game Show Network, and trying 2 reconnect with loved 1's.

    So, prolly just live a little bit now

    Also: if you want 2 ask this question in a way that signifies how intelligent / witty / clever / awesome u R, post it to Quora — as far as I can tell that is the point of that website.

    • http://www.twitter.com/macostarz macostarz

      Upvote for asking Quora: you have nothing to lose!

  • David Lee Auth

    Bro seems “lost”, seems to lack “purpose”, spends time thinking about what combinations of “lifestyle” and “lifestyle accessories” will “justify” his “existence” and give him “spiritual fulfillment”. Seems to “browse xoxohth.com at “work””, takes flame srsly. Projects his own emptiness onto coworkers, believes that only he is “deep” enough to daydream about one day being a slightly different sort of chambraycore apex consumer. A common problem. Have you tried listening to a different subgenre of boutique white people music on your Apple brand handheld device? Or cultivating an addiction to entry-level narcotics?

    • FaygoBro420

      oh wait i thought you were talking about carles.

      i really really like how this law message board is laid out.
      you guys who comment on carles.buzz,
      i like you a lot and i would really like to get closer to you.
      wish we had an old school ass, non-social-media message board to chill on.

    • n2whyteguyz

      i read that site and now i understand how this letter got here (i don’t understand what flame is yet). why is there so much reactionary bleed to these iconic consumer culture commentators? they never seem to “get it”. the same thing happened w/ the last psychatrist

  • Alexander Aronson

    LIVE LAUGH LOVE LEARN BUT DON’T EARN aka fuck off working at this job. If you really understand that nothing matters this shouldn’t be too hard but I don’t think that auth is even on your radar, OP. Who could even care about your shit? One option is as bad as the other.

    • Authman Prophecies

      Wrong. Auth knows no class. Auths have “chosen a side” and know their values. They know the answers to the questions Carles posed– they know how much they care about art, financial security, monogamy, etc. and act deliberately towards those ends.

      CC’s want “the best of both worlds,” and want to “leverage their skillset” in a way that makes their parents happy, but also makes them feel like they’re on a new frontier of youth consumption.

      This bro has no interest in being some drone zen guy (maybe the type of auth you had in mind). He knows he cares about material pursuits, he just doesn’t know which path to follow for that.

      The auth plan here is to join the 1%. An auth goes big based on what he/she cares about. A CC just compromises their way through life.

      • n2whyteguyz

        He is 1%, he wants to join the .1%

      • Alexander Aronson

        Good response but I feel like the bro who wrote this letter is gonna have a hard time acquiring money/material goods/”status” without embracing CC ideology. I don’t think you can be auth and CC simultaneously, unless neither term actually means anything (Via nothing matters, but obv many things matter to Carles and to all of us, individually and collectively). CC means a certain way of getting money/material goods/”status” that asks you to atleast believe in them as social utilities, so even if we use them ironically, we’re still using them. See what I’m saying? You can’t be an Auth CC because CC is un-authentic and auth no longer participates in the game of CC (because it leads away from Auth).

    • Authman Prophecies

      Also the “nothing matters” is more to clue you in that you have the power to auth. Art is bullshit and so is money. So is monogamy and so are one night stands.

      “Nothing matters” is saying that if you decide not to kill yourself, any path is as (in)valid as the next. Just don’t get caught in the middle (CC) from being too paralyzed by fear.

      • David Lee Auth

        “Nothing matters” is entry-level nihilism (advanced nihilism is the same, 0=0), and “auth” is Carles’ made-up word for boldly accessorizing and consuming un/scaleable content in the face of the howling existential void. Personally, I’m still rocking seapunk, which is AUTH AS F#CK since all the poseurs left. But, u know, whatevs bb, ur mt, I’m mt, and u can nvr quarantine the past (via The Pave Mints). Ask ur doctor about Xanax in the new 128oz Big Gulp size.

  • Sierra

    crles, is that u in the header photo? looking good, bb!

  • HOMOSAPIEN_FUCK

    Yo homie. Idk what your crisis is. Meaningful life doesnt matter alternative life dont matter either… lawyer or craft coffee maker… just do it bro %100… 100..100. If you are in 30s thinking about a cool life… how can you count on other people to give you that? You think you can count on 20 something year old people to deliver you truth through their guitar and synth sounds?
    anyways dude… if you do the coffee shop or whatever… i think adding blue into your name is good.. blue apron. Blue moon. Blue Moon.. blue is the cc wolf of yesterYears.

    • HOMOSAPIEN_FUCK

      via trynna sound older and wiser than i am… but dude it is a good business venture.. you dont hav4 to believe in the shops aesthetics.. but just get good at fooling people.. change the aesthetic every few years… and that is fucking good art. Fooling people into thinking they are buying into the moment of their time. Fuck yeh that is some good art baby

      • fizzle

        we don’t actually need to have/possess authenticity/meaning, we just need to believe that we have it.

      • Goof

        Solution: lay in a hammock and drink Soylent…forever

  • Me

    YA better get out the Polaroid
    If u know
    What’s
    Good
    4u
    ❤️

  • Christopher

    Maybe that bro should read a blog post about how ‘travel changed my life’ and he should ‘just quit the 9-5 grind and live on an alpaca farm in Budapest’

  • marrr

    Is this “Anonymous” supposed to be treated as if he had an actual problem?

  • stewart

    If I were him I’d try to make it to the top of the lawyer game.

  • n2whyteguyz

    i love clueless narcissism…like why did this guy write this im trying to figure it out

  • PringerX

    Who gives a shit dude, just do whatever

  • carles #1 fan

    i miss the honeybones i’ve known

  • carles #1 fan

    is it more auth to fatally shoot an unarmed black youth and be acquitted

    or get shot by your mate in a road rage incident

  • Me

    Bb
    I’m ok
    I’m kinda hungry
    But I’m getting thru it
    Day by day
    Step by step

    You look so cute
    5 o clock
    Shadow waves
    Speed racing
    On ur motor bike
    U call the shots

    I just wanna be urs
    Luv u

  • STINKY

    Write about Shingy! Regarding Verizon’s acquisition of AOL (excuse me, “aol.”): “Verizon touches 70% of the internet population, and that’s huge. We are excited that this partnership is an AUTHENTIC marriage. It is the right time and right place, man. It is amazing that two amazing brands are coming together. I am super excited.” accentuation mine

  • LibArtzcore

    The word bro is looking for is polysyndeton which means a sentence goes on and gets longer and sounds breathless and more vintage and less auth.

  • test

    He should learn another language. Really learn it. Live in a non-English-speaking country for at least a full year.