(I was thinking of the city of Lhasa this morning as I contemplated my dog, who is a Lhasa Apso-something else. I also thought of the cheery thought my sister shared with me a while ago: you know how we’re fighting wars for oil these days? She predicts that the next natural resource we’ll be fighting wars for will be water. Specifically, as the Himalayan snowpack starts to melt because of global warming, India and China will be forced into a standoff over water rights. I also think that contention over water rights will be the single most important factor driving the politics of California in the next few years. But that is neither here nor there.)

As the big 3-0 looms ominously (with 30 days remaining on the clock), I can’t help but think about the ridiculous trajectory of my life thus far. Seven years ago, having graduated from college, I had spent a year living at home, jobless, and directionless, having given up on my career plans, and stewing in probably one of the worst depressive episodes of my life. In those dark days, a lot of serendipity manifest itself, and it’s interesting how little things can change your life so much.

(What brings this particular time frame to mind was a brief discussion of how terrible “The Phantom Menace” was, which was in fact released in 1999.)

In some ways, it seems like an absurdly long time ago. I was 22, and in theory, my life was supposed to be ahead of me, although, at the time, I felt like I was a total loser who was completely screwed. Time hasn’t done much to change my emotional perspective, it’s true, but I guess have accomplished something. I’m not sure it sufficiently compensates for the emotional torture and loneliness I endured—in many ways only to get back to where I started from seven years ago.

And here I am, at home. My future is exactly as murky as it was. So in other ways, it seems like it was just yesterday that all this shit went down. A lot of memories from that almost completely wasted year are still pretty damn sharp, and a lot of things I despise about myself haven’t changed a damn bit.

And I can’t help but whine about it. What do I do next? How do I continue to adapt and grow? How do I expand the scope of my life? Society has plenty of suggestions: buy a house, get married. Hah. Do I want these things because I really want these things, or have I just heard it so many times I’ve been completely brainwashed? (I pretty much suspect the latter.)

So then what? Professional advancement, i.e., climbing the corporate/academic/political ladder? Bah.

The refrain from a Ben Folds Five song suddenly wafts through my brain:

Feh. There’s just this terrible sense of the ever-ticking clock, and I’m chasing the stupid White Rabbit down this rabbithole of despair, worried that “I’m late! I’m late!”

Which naturally leads to thinking about this exchange from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Which then makes me think about this Calvin and Hobbes strip¹

Spinning around ever which way, and idly spinning my wheels. Fuck it.