I’ve given it a couple of days to sink in, but I still feel largely like I did walking out of my last class of my last year of college: ok, um, yeah. So, that was college... Uhh, not quite sure what I’m supposed to do now... ok...
For starters, I’ll retrospect. I sit in probably the only hammock on a front porch in all of west Philly (a laptop with wireless internet, a hammock, sun, and a beer in hand = nirvana), not yearning with a nostalgic heart for the misspent days of my youth, instead gathering what I’ve learned and, maybe more importantly but I’m not wise enough to say for sure, what I haven’t.
Which brings me to what I’d say is the most important change I’ve gone through since starting this whole college thing: Luke at the end of his senior year of high school wasn’t introspective enough to write something like this or admit how little he’s actually learned. It’s something like a modest arrogance, as little sense as that makes: confidence enough in my judgment to both make (more than occasionally rash/bad/injurious) decisions and admit my limits, at least on occasion. If I hadn’t spent yesterday afternoon doing keg stands, throwing chocolate syrup all over juniors to celebrate Penn’s Hey Day, and jogging blocks in boxer briefs, I might say I’ve done a bit of growing up. Let’s just call it gaining a different perspective.
Best lesson: value of variety/leisure/randomness. I’ve learned more from having the audacity to travel farther than I can afford, kiss girls I shouldn’t be able to get, help lead clubs I’m not even really qualified to join, talk to random strangers, and bullshit with people much smarter than me than from most of my classes. I’m not trying to brag or make myself sound like some kind of badass rebel: I’ve fucked up badly and painfully on many occasions, and the rebel thing doesn’t exactly work with me being in business school and probably too scared and worried about my future to do anything other that work some random 9-to-5 desk job for the rest of my life... but I digress. The point: I need to do more random things even if I shouldn’t be able to, because they’re enjoyable and fulfilling.
Romantically, I think of the movie “Sideways.” Basically, it’s a horrible movie with that annoying depressing guy who sucks the life out of every scene he’s in. However, it has a theme I find unfortunate and accurate: people at 40 often know no more about interacting with the opposite sex than preteens. Despite a long and wonderful relationship with a beautiful, intelligent girl (she’ll read this:), women are still a frustrating enigma. I recently told one I don’t intend to have a serious relationship anytime in the next decade, and I’ve developed the “fat and balding” rule: when I am fat and balding is when it’s finally time to start thinking about maybe getting married. I have advanced little from the point of throwing rocks at the cute girls in preschool: now, I poke them on thefacebook.com instead.
As for interacting with other people more broadly, I’ve made a few close friends and lots of “lighter” ones. As I see it now, the point’s simply to be outgoing. The keg-stand party yesterday was fun largely because someone randomly invited construction workers. Joining a frat or some other elitist bullshit club would have made me significantly worse at life, but it also would have increased the number of overall party invitations / lighter friends. Anyways, I guess the point is that I don’t think there’s any reason not to be really outgoing. I may freak out some people, but I probably don’t want them as friends anyways.
I’m sounding preachy even to myself, so it’s probably about time to wrap this thing up...
The work thing isn’t as confusing as women, but it’s pretty damn incomprehensible for me. This $50,000 of educational debt has prepared me very well to do many responsible adult job things, but it forgot to change my aspirations. I think I had it right at 5 years old when I told my parents I wanted to be a snake catcher, shark killer, and secret agent. Didn’t realize then that I’d turn vegetarian for the first 2 years of college or hate the current state of American politics, but those are different stories. What remains is that I don’t like wearing a shirt, let alone a suit. One of my teachers recently told me to “find a bunch of computer programmers and go change the world.” I get excited just thinking about that, but it’s a lot easier said by a guy with multiple degrees than done by some kid who, in spite of his prestigious diploma, really doesn’t know all that much about anything. But I digress, and the point is that I have no point: work is strange, and I guess that figuring it out will be my next adventure. I just hope it doesn’t entail working 100-hour weeks behind some desk for the rest of my life.
And I guess the conclusion is that I have no conclusion. I know that I feel ready to graduate, or at least to leave Penn, but beyond that I’m not quite sure. I suppose a good start is my planned trip to Cameroon, India, and Pakistan, but other than being enjoyable and putting me in a bit more debt it’s likely to do little towards long-term plans. Ditto with the option of traveling with friends to a handful of other countries afterwards, but it’ll certainly at least be fun. Ok, definitely droning now: if this was a class, I’d have fallen asleep before getting even halfway through this. Let’s leave it with my answers to my own questions about what’s next: who knows, who cares, but, no matter how fat I get, even several decades from now when I’m probably bald and maybe even married, I hope to often be shirtless and need to change courses if I’m not enjoying the ride.