I agree with most of the essay but my main problem is that Graham seems to believe that popularity stops mattering after High School. I’m only 26 but this doesn’t seem to be true at all. Popularity just moves from the primary consideration to the tie breaking consideration. On job interviews the candidate best able to do the work may be passed over for one who is easy to work with.
I use the skills I learned in High School almost every day whether it is mimicking how the other people in the office dress or getting regulators to like me so they won’t examine my permits as closely…
Beyond that though I think the lack of purpose is what makes people unhappy. The kids who had something to focus on, fixing up a vehicle, succeeding at sports or getting into college, were happier then those who just showed up and focused on merely surviving each day. I think that spending large amounts of time in classes that are perceived as worthless also is part of the problem nothing is more soul sucking then watching a clock and that doesn’t change whether you are listening to a teacher pretend an author means something beyond the text of his story, taking a bunch of numbers and turning them into a bunch of other numbers, or staring blankly at the SDMB waiting to get off work.