How Not to Grow Up

My life is in disarray.

The Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury '11

After a weekend of reggae, sunshine and fresh air in a place where music was loud as were the clothes and hairstyles, real life has made my festival blues the worst I've had for a long time.

No longer can I wander round a field aimlessly looking for an enticing doorway or the particular artist/band that I want to see. No longer will my biggest problem be how to tackle the toilets in the most effective way without having to inhale the toxic fumes from below. NO LONGER will I be able to return to the hard life of student living, where rules and mature behaviour are discouraged and one can allow themselves to be useless for a few days before the reality of one's bank balance becomes a very immediate problem.

I went into this festival with the attitude that this may well be the final time I spend a weekend getting muddy and messy in a field with other like-minded people - I will have to make the most of it before I grow up, get a real job, pay off my debts and become a worthy citizen of the world. Instead, I've become more determined than ever to avoid the office rut and preserve my naivety and youth.

Before going to Boomtown, I spent 2 weeks working for a magazine in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. I went out there with the attitude of staying for a significant amount of time to get some great experience and be able to edit a magazine and get my name in print. Instead, I found myself faced with the biggest culture shock of my life.

The largest chandelier in the world -
53 tonnes,  15,000 lamps, and 18 stories high.

I hated the city, I hated the people, I hated the mentality of the town. The city itself had a strange falseness to it - all the old soviet blocks had a façade on the front to make it look Roman or European and sophisticated, but the back of the building was still the same old tower block it was before - a perfect metaphor for the place. The Azeris have adopted a vulgar spending culture - one which isn't about buying the best product, but spending the most amount of money and brandishing expensive goods to better themselves against others. Every business meeting and office discussion was laced with hours of back story that made every-day British politics look like a doddle. Most of the people there had an agenda - to make a quick buck and not worry about the consequences (also beautifully illustrated by the disused oil rigs littering the Caspian Sea - the destruction of a coastline where money-making opportunities are to be had no matter what the natural cost). A lot of the ex-pats I met had a 'Baku wife' to wile away their lonely hours when they weren't spending their time making money in a place where corruption is rife - if one is to be successful in Baku, one must know how to play the game.

It was certainly no place for an idealist. I quickly came to the conclusion that Baku was not for me. I needed to get out of there sharpish - I was (and am) too young to sacrifice my morals just yet. I'm only just beginning my adult life (stubbornly, but it is slowly taking shape). As naive as this seems, the world needs idealists, and I intend to be one of them.

Now, in the aftermath of what was quite possibly the worst two weeks of my life followed by the best weekend of my life, I am faced with the insurmountable task of paying my student debts off, finding a place to live, getting a proper job AND chasing the writing dream.

I'm not sure how I intend to achieve all these things, but one thing is for sure - I'm not ready to leave the muddy fields and smelly toilets behind just yet. Maybe next year...