inreaction

i’ve been in discussion with many regarding the ever oppressive weight of deciding one’s own future (or at least pretending to do so, lest we become human and see where our experiences take us).

as it stands, i feel an overbearing need to set some sort of plan in motion, have some ends to means at, something to justify pages of stimulating yet somehow inconsequential reading assignments.  and yet i find that it’s not right to equate being pre-med, pre-law, or pre-delirium with being pre-life. a major or a career is a description of a life but it is no more of a life than the college experience may lead to. in fact, it appears that many of theses careers share something in common: a lifeless routine spiced only by differing amounts of fulfillment.

so what do i want to do? i want to think about doing teach for america for a few years to forgive my loans and inspire children not to give up on what they think they can’t have, i want to go to law school, i want to graduate, i want to work at a firm making the big bucks and engage in a  machine of legal voracity, i want to quit, and i want to open a practice that has medical and legal resources for the groups that have access and need for both (the urban poor). i want to travel but i have no sense of the imperative in this matter–i only want to travel to see new cultures and notice differences in the way strangers make eye contact in the streets of their cities. i want to write articles to dismantle the idea of “their” as it was used in the last sentence, to remind us that there is no “interracial” that unbinds humanity, there are no reasons for judgment and countless reasons to help.

i want to do all of this and i want to father children who have a great mother, children who understand that their place in the world is at one infinitesimal and infinite in its importance and potential, children who have comfortable lives but understand that money is best when saved not for no purpose but for the fostering of comfort for their children, for their retirement, and for their enjoyment at a rate relative to their graceful age and mature means.

i want to leave a legacy not in my name but in my works–buildings named not after mine but after my ideas, ideals shared by all but forgotten under duress, fatigue, and “practicality.” i want to be proud of my ethnicity not for statistics confirming our wealth but for the intangible beauty of the richness of our culture. i want to be successful without being flashy, healthy without forgoing enjoyment, intelligent without education’s arrogance.

maybe, if i do all of this, i can be happy when i am tired, awake when not sleeping, and a creditor of good in society, not just the child of fortune’s malaise and impropriety’s folly.