The Real World

Of course, when I type "the real world" into the Google search engine, I am offered nothing but links to information on the MTV hit reality show of the same name. A small part of me had hoped for a link that led to something intriguing. Something more deserving of the title "the real world". Over the course of my soon to be 29 years, the term "the real world" has usually had a negative connotation attached to it. Something along the lines of a damp and dreary cubicle with a bleary monitor displaying never ending numbers that are attended to by tired, dark-ringed eyes and hands burdened by carpal tunnel syndrome. A little bit of hell in exchange for being able to pay the bills. It's something that I've wanted to avoid at all costs, even after MTV glorified it, but it seems to be an inevitability according to the masses. Volunteers frequently toss the phrase around when referring to going back home and finding work. "It's time to go back and join the real world..." I wonder when the term was first used to mean "a boring job" instead of "the Earth unadulterated". If you look simply at the words and not at the current use, the phrase The Real World would, to me, evoke images of far off places. Of the African Savannah and the distant, icy reaches of Antarctica. Of the depths within the Marianas Trench and the sharks of the Great Barrier Reef. Of the red and gold striped Grand Canyon walls and the windy steppes of Mongolia. Not of computers. Not of the nine to five routine we all frequently fall victim to. I feel like being here is the most real thing I've ever done and I hope that in forty years from now, when I look back, I'll feel like I've managed to experience at least a little bit of the real world. The real real world.