Can't Make It

I'm tired. I feel selfish. I feel bad.

I'm tired about bitching about things I should be doing and don't want to do. Since Tucson I've been severely intellectually selfish, not wanting to explore concepts or ideas of any kind that don't seem in some way relevant to the particular ideas that I want to explore, and this is detrimental to me in many ways. Grade-wise, for instance. Limiting my avenues of intellectual exploration.

Frankly, how I really feel is that there's only so much brain-space to be allotted per day. I have things to read, things to think about, things to write. I don't wanna play nice with the other kids anymore.

This leaves me confused, mostly. Luckily I have an entire summer of forced vacation, so I won't be pursuing anything distracting unless I'd like to.

I'm jealous of certain people. Chris, for one. Others, too. I wish I could just make the "choice," so to speak, to pursue one thing over another and be done with it. Life-mission accomplished. No more wasting time thinking about THAT. I've felt that sense of completion just once, when I decided to go to medical school, knowing full well that before a year was up I would have changed my mind again and run off to what I considered a bigger and better pursuit. But I'm left feeling not only dissatisfied but with the sneaking suspicion that the chase is better than the catch; that I don't really want a purpose so much as the excitement of feeling that perhaps I've found my purpose. But if you ask Chris, for example, software engineering isn't his purpose at all; it just happens to be something he's suited for, talented at, and highly lucrative.

Yay Chris.

Me, I've always been a softie, unspoiled by the toil of hard labor. Never once have I had to work for a living or do anything other than pine for my intellectual calling - I've always had the luxury of dabbling in one thing and then another and never making up my mind. Part of me understands that I would do myself a favor to throw myself out in the street and learn to fend for myself, but another part of me revolts at the idea of spending my time, well, working. I don't want to work; I don't want work to feel like work. I want to pursue a passion and incidentally get paid for it.

This all sounds so simple-minded, and I realize that. Of course we'd all like to do precisely what we'd like to do - no compromise entailed - but at certain junctures we invariably have to work when we don't want to, finish a project we don't particularly care about, and turn down the opportunity to run in the other direction just so we can earn the right to continue on in THIS direction. That's the part I don't get.

Being an adult, I mean.

Reading over this just now, I notice that the flow and feel of my writing directly corresponds to my mental state. I'm feeling flat and frustrated and uninspired, and my writing reflects that. No surprise, of course, but I miss the buoyancy of a happy writer, or even the anguish of an unhappy one. I can't be an apathetic writer; it will NEVER pay the bills.