7/3/2004 – Robert

 

Life flickers, in the blink of an eye, everything flies apart.

I'm driving home after dropping off a good friend.  The moon's out in full, the air is cool and my windows are down.  In the home stretch of the drive, flashing lights slice through the night.  I slow down, perplexed at how to cross the intersection.  There's an opening to turn right, take a detour.  I begin turning, and I see many police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances.  On a tow truck, I see a taxi... what was left of a taxi.  There's your normal level of smashed, but I'm amazed that anyone in the taxi survived.

A pulse of panic races through me.

I'm wasting my life away.  Day in, day out, I sit in front of a computer terminal, pounding out code / filling database requests for an insurance agency.  I've been working in the information technology world since before I was 18.  I don't feel like I'm making a difference to anybody.  I just eagerly salivate like one of Pavlov's dogs every time a payday comes around.  Every two weeks, I get paid, look forward to the next payday. I look back and realize that I've wasted 7 years at this.

If that was me in the cab, and I lay on the street dying, what would I have to say about my life?  Have I really affected anyone?  Have I accomplished anything really worth mentioning?  In the words of George Costanza: if you take everything I've accomplished in my life and compressed it into one day, it looks pretty impressive.

These thoughts aren’t new, I’ve had them for a long time.

It's about time I stop this degenerate cycle.  It's about time I really shake up the fabric of my existence.  I know I've been saying a lot over the years that I need to get out of Utah, that I need to try something new with my life.  It's about time I put my money where my mouth is and figure it all out.

 

robert@digitalsingularity.com