Often enough adopting a goal requires the concession that life is unacceptable as it is. Higher education is the perfect example. For students in contemporary times college has a different social and psychological function; it is the means of access to a certain kind of life (rather than a certain kind of knowledge). We have come to the conclusion that our lives will only be complete in some future scenario. Not only that but also that our work in the present will not lead to that completeness but the mere opportunity to attain it. We are larvae waiting for a transformation.
What happens in the time of caterpillars is always meaningless to a certain degree, as what is good can (supposedly) be held and what is bad can be erased when the new lifestyle begins. To get by in this state people create situations with low consequence thresholds: relationships tend toward the less intimate, money is wasted, and alcohol is consumed to excess. I posit that the young are not reckless because they think they are invincible but rather because to a certain extent they believe what they doing is transitory, worthless and there is freedom in that. Naturally this can extend to identity as if what you do now is without value (or of mediated value) it should follow that how you are is similarly without value. How can we derive worth from a temporary lifestyle that we treat as the germ of future happiness? How can we see ourselves as valuable as we are rather than as embryos of our future selves?
