LOST Chapter 18, Verse 9: Hero no Maru

There is something a bit recursive about this memory Space Travelers. This memory is about the trip which inspired this blog to even exist in the first place. Like some trips, we now end back up where we began.

countdown: 8 hours 44 minutes

MEMORY #9: Hero no Maru

In my second year in college I began becoming more professionally oriented. I began to care about having a career and I started working on my resume. I remember how my environment made me feel like having an internship was important. More than than important, it felt like it was necessary.

I felt weird that I didn't have a summer internship. I decided to work harder in my junior year.

I began early by attending some programs put on by the career center at my campus. They made it seem easy. The entire thing was odd because in the engineering community, we are constantly being told this line about how important we are and how jobs come to us. To me it was all odd and I didn't really realize what was happening to me.

By second semester I had not had an interview and I was becoming very depressed. I had really applied myself and been extremely disciplined. So by April, it was obvious I would not have an internship.

I needed something to feel that void. So I left. I just got into my car, and I drove. My road trip in total was 7,000 miles over two months. There is something very liberating about being on your own. I had lots of time to think. Heal.

I was in San Diego. A friend had invited me to a birthday party. I didn't really know anybody. I remember being approached by some very...

uh...

Californian people. Californian youth at least. Out of high school, but still younger than me. Beautiful people. Nicely tan. They seemed interested in me. I was a new person in their circle, so I stood out. I was dressed a lot nicer than normal that night. I could almost blend in.

They were very interested in what I did. Not in Engineering though, just about how much money I would make. They very very certain that I belonged on the west coast, and that I'd need to find a job out there. I said how much I liked the area and mentioned that I had family in the area. However I followed that with how I liked some companies for the projects they worked on. When I told then the cites I'd be in they seemed to turn their nose up at the thought of living in the midwest.

a "fly-over" state

I replied, "Yeah I guess our job is to just make the food. I guess I'm out of place."

I thanked my friend for inviting me, and left. As I left, I was still disgusted by these superficial plastic materialist people.

Then I remembered how I had become so obsessed with some job goal. A goal I didn't even set for myself. It was set for me. I did want a job, but for the experience, the skills. The casualty of this obsession was that I became sadly aware of two truths.

1) I didn't have a single goal in my like that didn't have something to do a with a career.

2) I had stopped doing the things I loved to become a professional.

I spent the second half of my trip just soaking in the beauty of the Pacific northwest. As I drove back east, I remember sleeping on the side of the road in Montana, only to wake up to the most majestic sunrise. It was just for me.

No cars.
No people.

I think the sunset gets all the glory, but sometimes a sunrise can be breathtaking.

It's honestly a shame I'm not a morning person, and it's too common that if I see the sunrise, I'm stuck i a building.

Now I make new goals for myself. I let myself wander. I dream again of new adventures.

Being professional is the just a hobby now. My real occupation is being spectacular.

When I wrote this, I guess I didn't know how true the part about the hobby was. The spectacular part is still a work in progress though.