That fellow happens to be John Mayer.

People who don’t read his blog should re-evaluate their lives and try and catch a glimpse of his writing every now and then. I lost touch a few months ago with John Mayer the writer and became too involved with John Mayer the lyricist (his jams help me calm down). And other than dishing out sweet beats he also happens to be a pretty funny guy (look his videos up on FunnyOrDie.com).

The John Mayer who I like is the one who wrote this blog entry, of which I add an excerpt:

I wish that when I was younger I could have met my current self. We would have sat down at a coffee shop so that I could explain life to young me in terms that only we would understand. It would have saved me a lot of hardship.

…

I used to think that life was an intricate series of levers and pulleys, buttons and switches, Mexican standoffs and hostage negotiations. As I get older I realize that life is more Netherlands minimalist than Jackson Pollock. The problems don’t get fewer, and in fact they grow in number, but the way I index them in the database is different. More problems get filed under fewer category headers.

He was able to put 22 years of thoughts going on in my head into 3 simple paragraphs. The guy is about 30 though so he’s had enough time and experience to figure out that the levers and pulleys don’t really exist.

My favorite part of the entire excerpt lay in the last two sentences. That particular section was most poignant to me after experiencing a weekend filled with young dramatic 20 somethings. I think this more or less categorizes under “Pick Your Battles,” something which we should all learn to do as we get older. I don’t believe that means to bite your tongue and not speak up or stand for yourself, but to know how to properly communicate your feelings without creating more chaos for someone whose problem database is far more complex than any sane, mature human could imagine. They’re the kind of people who simply just don’t get it.

If you could have dinner with your 7 year old self, would you? I probably would like to just for the overall experience but I wouldn’t “Mommy” myself so to speak and attempt to instill life lessons in the young freckle faced tom-boy. The point of having life lessons is that they are earned (and learned for that matter) which is exactly what I think Mayer is talking about here. There’s a reason we aren’t born with so much knowledge and wisdom – it’s so that we realize things like how putting your hand on a hot oven SUCKS and the scars you get from it will teach you to ask for an elder before attempting to fuck around with that thing again (rough memories!)

As we go through life, yes, things get more difficult, but what’s the use in complaining? Life’s a beautiful thing. If you read that excerpt I added and didn’t really understand it, then I recommend you take another look, and then another and maybe one last look and attempt to realize how it may or may not correlate with things you’re currently experiencing. Looking at this from a post-graduate perspective really made the message seem more clear to me. Now’s the time to grow up and for people to put their petty shit aside. Now’s the time to attain lay-enlightenment. Put all of your experiences into a bubble and to figure out what that means to you.

Other than hobbies, what kind of changes are you making/trying to make since graduating?