Reality Check.

If you read this post and thought it was boring, uninteresting, self-indulgent, desultory, or petty...it's your fault. Because I'm telling you now. It's all of those things.


To those of you who knew me before this transition into law school, do you think that I have changed? (I want you actually answer this question. Though I know you won't. Ass.)

Every year of my life since I was 18 years old has been beset with radical changes in perspective. The color and shape of the universe keeps changing. Just a quick sketch:

1. In the 2000 election, I was not able to identify any differences between Democrats and Republicans.
2. I began the 2001 sophomore year in misery, hating myself and my life, entirely too introspective and bogged down in self-pity and self-loathing.
3. In 2002, I left the Western world for the first time in my life and was startled by China, a place where everyone looks like me, where people share the same blood. A place which awakened me to the fact that I really didn't belong anywhere.
4. In 2003, I decided to try certain drugs.
5. In 2004, I left for India, having never met an HIV+ person, an untouchable, or an orphan. Terrified.
6. In 2005, I tried law school.
7. In 2006, I began losing the battle to law school.

Suffice it to say, every single year sucked me deeper and deeper into trying to tease out the chaos into something that made sense, and every year there was a major shift, a re-alignment, a new understanding, and a deeper reflection on my own past understandings. (This is part of my suspicion about people who have very very strong and set ideological beliefs at this age. If a month goes by where an belief you hold does not gets obliterated, pushed aside, refuted, compromised, or at least seriously challenged by some experience or understanding...then I don't think you're paying attention. Or have accepted the primacy of faith over understanding. Which, I guess, is fine.)

The larger question is whether I really have changed or not. For example, I am abundantly, painfully, and bitterly aware that I have moments of pompousness, arrogance, and condescension. A quarter of the time I don't mean it at all, half of the time I'm not even aware it's happening (which, I guess is the most dangerous part), and the other quarter of the time I'm probably doing it on purpose because I'm being annoyed. Has it always been this way? I distinctly remember a moment in 10th grade, when one of my friends told me that Billy Baugh thought I "talked down" to him. It was the first time I had ever heard that, and I was devastated that I hadn't realized people thought such things of me. Anyone?

I remember being proud of who I used to be. I don't remember being ashamed of myself. I don't remember living in a complicated amalgam of an inferiority complex infused with the God complex infused with so much alcohol and cigarettes.

I remember, sitting in a Waffle House with Nic Turza when I was 16, and he must have been 18. It was after one of the band's shows at Ground Zero, and we just wanted to grab some food. And Nic was someone I had always admired, who I believed was one of the most brilliant and competent people I had ever known, but still had an incredibly developed sense of integrity and purpose. I imagine he had little or no respect for me, this being a guy who yelled and screamed at me the first time I ever met him. (apparently I ruined the ending of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and movie spoilers were a major pet peeve.)

And we talked, and somehow we ended up on our goals in life. When he asked what I wanted, I said that the only thing I wanted, and ever would want, is to have a decent life. To make enough money to provide for two kids and give them what was given me. To have a loving wife that I loved. To have a stable, contented family life. That's it, that's all, and what else could we want? (I'm paraphrasing a much more eloquent delivery I'm sure). And I remember Nik was surprised, and I remember that I was surprised at him being surprised. I had not the slightest iota of an aspiration for greatness. What I said that night must have moved him though, because he went home that night and wrote what I had said onto his wall in black marker.

Who cares? Who knows. Is that how you would think of me?