Not settling...
Mostly unrelated to this post: here's some photos of me and my friends skating at a contest in Shanghai this past summer. Jay is in the white sleeveless (we call it a "wife-beater" in the States), Brett in the black shirt, and I'm in the gray.
Friday night, a car-full of Chicago-land skaters that us Jackson crew are friends with came up for the weekend. On a trip to the store for alcohol, one of them pressed me about what I'm up to and my future plans. I mentioned going to the Rockies this Autumn, then hopefully a trip around the World spanning 2009 and 2010, then maybe finishing a degree at Northern Michigan University. After that, I said I really don't know, but that I like the idea of living on a fishing boat on either the Great Lakes or the Pacific Coast.
Then he asked me a clarifying question, "But do you think you'll ever settle down with a house?" It was the speed of my answer that surprised myself, "No way." Then of course, "What about if you meet the right girl?" he asked. Again, I had already thought it through, "If she's the right girl, then she'll go anywhere with me. If she won't, then she's not the right girl." The answer seemed to send shockwaves through the group, whom are all younger than me. I reveled in their collective, "Whoa," not because they might look up to such a response, but because it might cause them to think about their existence and independence as an individual human a bit differently than they have been nurtured to think about it.
Friday night, a car-full of Chicago-land skaters that us Jackson crew are friends with came up for the weekend. On a trip to the store for alcohol, one of them pressed me about what I'm up to and my future plans. I mentioned going to the Rockies this Autumn, then hopefully a trip around the World spanning 2009 and 2010, then maybe finishing a degree at Northern Michigan University. After that, I said I really don't know, but that I like the idea of living on a fishing boat on either the Great Lakes or the Pacific Coast.
Then he asked me a clarifying question, "But do you think you'll ever settle down with a house?" It was the speed of my answer that surprised myself, "No way." Then of course, "What about if you meet the right girl?" he asked. Again, I had already thought it through, "If she's the right girl, then she'll go anywhere with me. If she won't, then she's not the right girl." The answer seemed to send shockwaves through the group, whom are all younger than me. I reveled in their collective, "Whoa," not because they might look up to such a response, but because it might cause them to think about their existence and independence as an individual human a bit differently than they have been nurtured to think about it.