Changes and cataclysms
There are things that happen that make big changes in your life. Like having your first child. Subsequent children aren't as big a deal. It's more a question of where to put them. Standing them in the corner only works so long. Then there are moderate changes like figuring out that your feet are ruined and you'll have to wear orthopedic arch supports for the rest of your life or figuring out that your eyes have gotten so bad that you'll have to wear your glasses sunrise to bedtime for the rest of your life. Then again walking is overrated and people pay good money for soft focus.
Then there are changes that are somewhere in between. Like your last day of school. Tomorrow is my last day of school. Tomorrow I take my final finals. The end of the end and the beginning of the rest of my life. I don't really know what change, if any, to expect. I could imagine standing on the beach, looking up at a giant tidal wave breaking over me and thinking, "this should be interesting. It will surely suck at some point and it may be the biggest thrill of my life, but things will surely be different after this." School wasn't like that. It was more like a four-year root canal. We now return you to your regularly scheduled chewing.
I'm thinking that this will be a transition of Seinfeldian proportions. In other words, little or no transition to speak of. I'm counting on relief, but that's about it. That's a bummer in a way. I need a cataclysm. I'm in need of something that will scare the bejeezus out of me or slap me upside the head or a near-death experience or something. I want to bring about some changes in my life and I'm afraid that resolving to turn over a new leaf just won't quite cut the mustard. We'll see. After I take my tests tomorrow, I have to wait for grades. that should take a week or three. I suppose there's a slim chance that I could fail and still need one more class after all. The thing is, I can fail Spanish and get a 'D' in history and still graduate. Then, maybe, slowly but surely, the leaf will turn. What I don't want is to find myself in the same rut I was in four years ago when I started all this. I remember being closer than I've ever been to serious depression. For that reason and others, I've come to believe that at least in my case, depression is merely a symptom of having nothing to be passionate about.
Passion:
Play the guitar.
I want to learn to surf. I also want to shoot some people. No one important, not necessarily anyone I know either, just some people. There's what, 6 Billion of them? Who'll miss a half a dozen? It seems like dozens of them get blown to smithereens every day and life goes on; business as usual. Some people get to have all the fun.
If I can't do that, I think I'd like to open a restaurant. I don't know exactly what kind of restaurant but I want it to be in France and I'll loosely model it after Deux gros nez in Reno (God rest it's soul.... if it had one... and it probably did). Chili Verde will likely be on the menu.
I was having this discussion with a friend who's also a colleague. He also wants to open a restaurant. I told him that at my place, there'll be a place to hang your bike from the ceiling in the entry way and anyone who rides their bike there gets 10% off. He said, "Yea! what an idea! You can probably get the municipal government to subsidize you for reducing traffic and helping the environment". That kind of surprised me. It hadn't occurred to me. Yea, it's totally obvious now that I think of it, it's just not the way my mind works. It's the way French minds work. My American mind just thought it would be a cool thing to do. My friend's French mind immediately saw a windfall. I'm just not Socialist enough. That's the least of my problems.
I must go make fries now.
Then there are changes that are somewhere in between. Like your last day of school. Tomorrow is my last day of school. Tomorrow I take my final finals. The end of the end and the beginning of the rest of my life. I don't really know what change, if any, to expect. I could imagine standing on the beach, looking up at a giant tidal wave breaking over me and thinking, "this should be interesting. It will surely suck at some point and it may be the biggest thrill of my life, but things will surely be different after this." School wasn't like that. It was more like a four-year root canal. We now return you to your regularly scheduled chewing.
I'm thinking that this will be a transition of Seinfeldian proportions. In other words, little or no transition to speak of. I'm counting on relief, but that's about it. That's a bummer in a way. I need a cataclysm. I'm in need of something that will scare the bejeezus out of me or slap me upside the head or a near-death experience or something. I want to bring about some changes in my life and I'm afraid that resolving to turn over a new leaf just won't quite cut the mustard. We'll see. After I take my tests tomorrow, I have to wait for grades. that should take a week or three. I suppose there's a slim chance that I could fail and still need one more class after all. The thing is, I can fail Spanish and get a 'D' in history and still graduate. Then, maybe, slowly but surely, the leaf will turn. What I don't want is to find myself in the same rut I was in four years ago when I started all this. I remember being closer than I've ever been to serious depression. For that reason and others, I've come to believe that at least in my case, depression is merely a symptom of having nothing to be passionate about.
Passion:
Play the guitar.
I want to learn to surf. I also want to shoot some people. No one important, not necessarily anyone I know either, just some people. There's what, 6 Billion of them? Who'll miss a half a dozen? It seems like dozens of them get blown to smithereens every day and life goes on; business as usual. Some people get to have all the fun.
If I can't do that, I think I'd like to open a restaurant. I don't know exactly what kind of restaurant but I want it to be in France and I'll loosely model it after Deux gros nez in Reno (God rest it's soul.... if it had one... and it probably did). Chili Verde will likely be on the menu.
I was having this discussion with a friend who's also a colleague. He also wants to open a restaurant. I told him that at my place, there'll be a place to hang your bike from the ceiling in the entry way and anyone who rides their bike there gets 10% off. He said, "Yea! what an idea! You can probably get the municipal government to subsidize you for reducing traffic and helping the environment". That kind of surprised me. It hadn't occurred to me. Yea, it's totally obvious now that I think of it, it's just not the way my mind works. It's the way French minds work. My American mind just thought it would be a cool thing to do. My friend's French mind immediately saw a windfall. I'm just not Socialist enough. That's the least of my problems.
I must go make fries now.