"Lower your expectations."

I just listened to an interview with Nathan Rabin on an old NPR podcast.

The podcasts I download are like my New Yorkers -- I get to them when I get to them. It's not like they expire like milk or soap couples. :)

Anyway, he wrote his memoir, The Big Rewind, detailing how he survived growing up by tying into pop culture. His impoverished upbringing, both economically and familial, sent him seeking comfort elsewhere. He did a stint in a mental hospital as a teenager, his parents abandoned him (mother to death, father to serious illness), and his friends were freaks and misfits who introduced him to the world of pop culture; for him, he concludes was a type of "flotation device."

Rabin made an interesting comment about Catcher in the Rye and how Salinger understood "teenage psyche." --- a book that a lot of my former students in the last years, particularly, found "whiny" and "lame." --

*shrugs*

Rabin said that because of his upbringing and life he has never trusted happiness or contentment. :(

Now apparently, he writes for the Onion's art section and has the successful sales of his memoir; he quipped, "Now I see what you humans mean by contentment."

This made me laugh out loud .... *grins*

His girlfriend's mother's advice to him:

"Lower your expectations."
"Settle."

Bwahahahaha.