I took the path less traveled - and it made quite a difference. What happened in those five years after my high school sent me into the world? My mother said, "I think it's time you got a job, son. Now." So, I opened up the want ads and got started. I worked in nursing homes and warehouses. I counted store inventories and played the hits as a weekend radio DJ. Just for the fun of it, I biked from Amsterdam to Paris. And I read books, lots of books on history, on cultures of the world, on the lives of famous people. Slowly in donned on me: I like intellectual debate about the world. How does one qualify for that? Go to college.
At 23, I had certain advantages over my freshman classmates, relative maturity being the most important. I'd already got the wild excess out of my system. No one had to convince me of the usefulness of an education either. So, I cruised through the first two years with a 4.0.
The life of the mind was great. I took classes from every department. So many fascinating things! Even math. The prof decided one day to derive the square root of -1. Such a thing is logically impossible, I naively thought. He proceeded to fill up two blackboards with equations. As he neared the end, I could finally anticipate how he would finish, and felt this great rush of joy that I was about to be proved wrong. I looked back over all his work: every step followed from that which went before, yet the path ended in entirely unexpected territory.
College was so filled with marvels that I began to wonder how I could stay indefinitely. My mother said, "Maybe it's time to start thinking about a career. What exactly is a job for a political science major?" I started looking through the requirements for professional schools.
It came down to dentistry and law. So many things attracted me to the law. Some of the great moments in American history were achieved by lawyers fighting passionately for the cause of justice. Lawyers aid victims. Lawyers preserve our constitutional freedoms. Lawyers guide others on how to safely reach their goals. And law fit with my delight in engaged intellectual exchange. The career compels you to learn and develop. It responds to most forms of human folly. It adapts to the ambiguities of an uncertain future. It would be a continuous challenge that holds out the promise of that joy that comes from finding a practical way forward.
Still, I hesitated. Dentists help people too. My mother said, "Do you really want to spend the rest of your life looking in other people's mouths?" I pictured myself, drill in hand, seeing the terror on a patient's face. Suddenly, the path became clear.
Great story Ken, very similar to my experiences in starting college when I was a little older and a couple years out of High Scholl. The aspect concerning the fascination with learning and the insight into the way the universe works - very similar to my experiences. No one had to push me, as soon as i started seeing the insights into chemistry, physics, biology and geology that my professor's had, I was hooked. Thanks for blogging, look forward to a continued conversation
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