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Speaking of Jade

Perhaps this is a function of growing up or growing old, but lately, I've found that it's becoming harder and harder for things to impress me.

A fast car that looked cool used to get my blood boiling... now anything short of a Ferrari F50 is blah.
Overseas trips used to be exotic and rare... now making 6 of them per year is routine.
Faster computers and the latest software used to be anticipated like the prize at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box... now I realize that after just a few months, they will be as useful as those Cracker Jack prizes.
High-end audio equipment used to be my passion... today I went to Glenn Poor's with Mike and Roy and although the Avant Garde speakers sounded amazing, my heart hardly skipped a beat for them.
I used to think of all the unbridled possibilities whenever I met someone new... now I think of all the ways I could screw things up.
I used to trust people and institutions... now it seems everyone's out to get ya, and institutions are just a bigger, more organized way for them to get ya.
And maybe worst of all, I used to tell myself that if I won the lottery I'd still work, but I have to say that at this point, I'd say "fuck it all, I'm going to buy some secluded place in the woods and just retire from society."

Normally I don't put stuff like this in a place where anybody could read it, because it's a horrible way for someone who doesn't know me to be introduced to me. But there's a lot of things on my mind lately, and a lot of changes happening in my life, and just a lot of tumult and turmoil right now. I'm "homeless" as I finalize my living arrangements, and bumming a spot on Mike's floor... I'm going to from making a ton of dough and pretty much doing as I please with it to being a poor student again... I'm wondering if I've lived roughly a quarter to a third of my life, and I've accomplished what seems so little... whether this trend will continue until, when I'm 75 and looking back at it all, what I'll think?

Or next week, when I've got a place to live and I'll be sleeping in my own bed again, with the confidence that comes with having strong friends and family around me, I'll forget these doubts and forge ahead steadfastly.

Comments

I'm voting for the latter. The sheer idealistic quality of what you're doing - returning to a place where it's okay (in fact, required) that you know less than those around you - prostrating yourself at the feet of knowledge, as it were - will pull the right strings in your brain and bring you full circle.