That's such a profound way of looking at things. I'm not sure, though, that you mightn't be here anyway, Dan. Sometimes, things just happen to you. I don't really believe in destiny, but I'm pretty firm about the way that sometimes an outcome just wants to happen. The universe needed you here, for some reason, and I'm sure you'll find out what that is in the next three and a quarter years if you haven't already.
I'll give you a good example. One of my good friends from home who is in your class (well, in a broad sense) went to some awful 150-person Catholic school in Southern California and hated it. He'd wanted to go there for a long time, but he realized he didn't like it. So he goes back to Oregon and takes classes at Portland State, and as a result has had the effect of making another one of my good friends sane and happy again. They weren't terribly close before. At all. Sometimes, that kind of thing seems predestined.
But I understand what you mean, don't get me wrong. I just think, I'm sure there's a reason on some level you're here, and I wouldn't discount the value of that.
Maybe I found my place at NU, and in hindsight certainly it couldn't have been anywhere else (except maaaybe UMich) but I was also lucky. Luck deriving from either statistics or a higher purpose grand design benevolent Being. The good news is I did achieve successes early on, but then again there was the drama aspect, so I still might have turned away. Several extremely talented musicians from high school did precisely that: closed their oboe and viola cases for the last time and began a lit or mechanical engineering major at Harvard or GA Tech. The truth is that it wasn't really all-state that got me here, it was meeting Ted; all-state merely brought me closer to him. I give Ted all the credit. His way of doing things appealed to me. His intelligence and reason. His soft suggestions. His practicality. His virtuosity. If I couldn't become something resembling what Ted represents, I would turn in my mouthpiece right now and do something more dignified than honk on a piece of wood in a tuxedo for a living.
So maybe I'm here because I'm an asset to the universe, I mean university. That doesn't mean that dreams never get deferred, never fester or explode.
I'll give you a good example. One of my good friends from home who is in your class (well, in a broad sense) went to some awful 150-person Catholic school in Southern California and hated it. He'd wanted to go there for a long time, but he realized he didn't like it. So he goes back to Oregon and takes classes at Portland State, and as a result has had the effect of making another one of my good friends sane and happy again. They weren't terribly close before. At all. Sometimes, that kind of thing seems predestined.
But I understand what you mean, don't get me wrong. I just think, I'm sure there's a reason on some level you're here, and I wouldn't discount the value of that.
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So maybe I'm here because I'm an asset to the universe, I mean university. That doesn't mean that dreams never get deferred, never fester or explode.
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