I went out for drinks last Thursday with my friend Kiel, whom I also lived with during my final year of university. It was the second time we have properly caught up since we both graduated six months ago and we had a series of great conversations — one of which has been replaying in my mind ever since.
It began with Kiel asking me about my experience of transitioning from the “pond” that was our relatively small Christian university to the “ocean” that is the post-grad world. He was curious about how my relationships with TWU (Trinity Western University) friends have evolved since I moved out of campus housing for good at the end of April and also wanted to hear about how I have found the transition from being a “big fish” in the aforementioned pond to becoming a tiny fish in the ocean we now find ourselves swimming in. His question reminded me of an Instagram reel (see below) that I first saw in late July. Before you click on it, please be advised that it does contain its fair share of swear words.
For those of you who did not watch the video, its thumbnail alone will communicate the gist of what resonated with me when I first watched it. The idea of an all-too-common yet seldom-talked-about “early twenties rut” whereby young men in particular struggle with a changing landscape vis à vis important aspects of their lives — from social circles and living situations to career and status — fit perfectly with what I had been experiencing in my own life.
Looking back, it is clear that my rut specifically had to do with the fact that graduation did not only signal the end of my time as a TWU student, but also the end of my time as a student leader at Trinity. Student leadership had been my life for four consecutive years. Despite my parents’ and professors’ protests, I had always cared far more about my extracurricular activities than I ever did about my coursework.
Each of my years in student leadership had been spent within TWU’s Discipleship Ministries program. After serving as a small group Bible study leader in my sophomore year, I co-led two different large group ministries in my third and fourth years before running the campus prayer ministry in my fifth. I learned and grew by leaps and bounds within each role whilst forming many a friendship that I still cherish to this day.
After graduating, however, I suddenly found myself without an outlet for any of my God-given passions or spiritual gifts. It was definitely a strange spot to be in. I still do not really know if it would be accurate to say that I was depressed during those first couple of months out of school, but I was certainly talking like I was. For example, I remember explaining to a friend I was living with at the time that I had no problem binge-watching television all night and sleeping well into the afternoon because what was there to even wake up early for? Talk about a rut.
It was perhaps at the height of my rut that I came across Substack creator Clare Ashcraft’s contribution to The Republic of Letters’ debate on the state of Gen Z.
Even though she was described as taking the “deeply pessimistic position” with regards to the debate, her argument somehow managed to fill me with a sense of hope for my immediate future. First, she diagnosed Gen Z’s problem:
The problem is, to survive requires almost nothing. We don’t have to hunt or gather food, nor do we have to drive to a grocery store or restaurant. We Doordash and work from home. We use dating apps and social media to cultivate relationships from our couch. As long as one can afford rent, one never needs to leave. But to afford rent, one must work two meaningless jobs, plus a passion-project-turned-side-hustle because any time not monetized is time wasted. What I’m saying is, we’re incentivized to numb ourselves. We created a world where we were no longer needed.
Funny enough, my tree planting money was just beginning to run out and I, naturally, had proceeded to land a meaningless job of my own. I made the grave mistake one fateful day of forgetting my ear buds at home and was thus doomed to rawdog my shift at the warehouse with no music or podcasts to distract me. Little did I know — this mistake was the best thing that could have possibly happened to me that day.
Forced to be alone with my thoughts while building cardboard box after cardboard box, I began to reflect upon my thitherto unsuccessful job hunt. I came to the shocking realization that not only had I failed to land my dream writing job, but no such job had even been listed anywhere around me. It just so happened that nobody in the lower mainland was particularly keen on hiring an unproven writer to cover their religious and political beats.
Then came my eureka moment. I thought to myself, “Wait a second… if no one will hire me to write about faith, why don’t I just start doing it myself?” And thus were born the initial plans for the publication you are now reading, as well as the cure to my quasi-depression. In a world where it takes almost nothing to survive, could it be that creativity and responsibility provide the only path to truly feeling alive? Clare Ashcraft seems to think so:
Too many of Gen Z have fallen into a life with little connection or responsibility to the outside world because it’s no longer a basic requirement to survive. And by responsibility, I don’t mean feeling pressure to solve the big issues like climate change, I mean a life of small responsibilities, of things that will not save the world. Driving our friends to the airport instead of letting them Uber. Helping a neighbor carry groceries. Showing up to a nephew’s sports practice. Starting a garden to tend to. Little by little we can find structures for our freedom that enable our joy and build a life of them.
I find it nothing short of remarkable what a difference starting this Substack has made in my post-grad life; what a breath of fresh air it has proven to be ever since I dared believe that I could be more than just a consumer on this platform. I am infinitely grateful to God for giving me the passion and the means to write week in week out and to all of you — my readers and subscribers — for following along.
Beautifully written, makes me think about my life!