I know not what to do: my mind is divided. – Sappho
In a conversation on altruism and living a purposeful life, a past partner of mine once said, paraphrased, “You have all these ideals and perceptions of how things should be, but you’re not actually doing anything about it.” I didn’t especially take offense and I had my counters, but the idea stuck. It has become one of those points in a person’s life where they wake up to new ways of thinking, see opportunities and future possibilities in a new light. I suppose for some people this could happen through drugs or harrowing experience, close mentorship or fortuitous happenstances. For me, a cynical girlfriend.
After a long period of consternation, I decided to enroll in graduate school in the fall focusing on sustainable development. It’s a program called Development Practice in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. It’s also ridiculously expensive, in the midst of not just one but two metropolitan cities, far from the mountains and any true wilderness, but will hopefully open up my future and allow me to pursue passions for economics and ecology in international development. A far cry from Computer Engineering. But as Einstein said “I was originally supposed to become an engineer, but the thought of having to expend my creative energy on things that make practical everyday life even more refined, with a loathsome capital gain as the goal, was unbearable to me.” I think the sacrifice will pay off. And even if it doesn’t, hopefully I’ll meet some hot, long-legged socialist there.
I spent the last afternoon soaking alone in some luke-warm sulfur springs at a closed-off campsite in the Marble Mountain Wilderness. Car’s still broke but the bike ride wasn’t bad. First sign said three miles, second said four, and the campsite was five down the road. Being barely spring season at elevation I was shivering after an hour, but putting on some weight from chopping wood all day and eating an inordinate quantity of beans and bear meat (much to my greenhouse partner’s vocalized chagrin) delayed hypothermia. Reflecting alone, wondering if the kind of person who has relegated themselves to manual labor hoeing beans in the sun and living in a tent is really cut out for managing an international non-profit. But the time is necessary. Rustication. Penance for bourgeois living. Maoist praxis.
Anst I’d take the tent and wood stove over the fully furnished condo on the 23rd floor of an Ayn-Randian glass and steel behemoth crystalized out of stolen labor and surplus vlaue, located in the upper loop of Chicago, complete with cleaning service and A/C that goes down to 42, fully subsidized by the world’s fastest financial market-making company. I slept on the floor every night while working there. I couldn’t bring myself to lose touch with people who have less. I even had a girl over, some traveling gal off Tinder. She slept on the bed, rolling over the edge to peer down at me in the middle of the night and whisper “Do you actually do this every night? You can come up if you want.” I declined, but I paid for her parking and she left some hash on the table the morning after. When my manager asked me what my favorite part of the internship was, I said simply “the free breakfast.” Yogurt and espresso.
Is it morally acceptable to throw away great things? Great opportunities and relationships, just to prove you have it in you? Is audacity a personality trait? I guess there’s always a price to pay for the chains you refuse.
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