You Can't Get There From Here

Commenter Carelli on Carolyn Hax's column Tell Me About It has some good stuff to share:

So many people get caught up in following the plan (whatever that is) that they don't realize how unhappy they are. You never know how bad you feel until you start feeling better....

All you have to do is choose what you want to do for the next 5 years or so, because you won't be starting all over (i.e., get another 4 yr degree) if you want to change. We're a fluid society - you have to start somewhere, you did, now go look for what you want.

And it's OK if it's only what you want for 5 years. I can't wait to find out what I'm going to do when I'm 60, and when I'm 80.

[egregious bold]

This resonates with me as I ponder my new single life in California, frequently asking myself, how did it come to this, and what next?

My father was fond of the saying, with regard to giving someone driving directions, "You can't get there from here. You have to go someplace else and start over again."

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photo by Madeleine

I still don't know what I'm doing, but at a much higher level

Like an icebert calving, the political blog MyDD watching an important part of itself break away. Stoller and Bowers are leaving to start another progressive blog endeavor, and we wish them the best of luck.

They do have some ideas about where they are going, but I wonder if the more interesting part of their future is what is possible but unknown. The new group has some serious brainpower and experience, we are all just waiting to see what they are going to do. Perhaps they are wondering themselves.

When people ask me what I am going to do next in Russian medicine, I have a respectable answer. Train the next generation of congenital surgeons, bring the teaching and practice of cardiology and cardiac surgery into the correct century etc. But in fact, I don't really know yet.

A year ago on the occasion of our tenth anniversary at St. Petersburg Children's, they asked me to speak about the future. After the respectable answer came the real one:

[egregious:] When I first started, I didn't know what I was doing. Now I still don't know what I'm doing, but at a much higher level.

A toast to our future! Whatever it may be.

Dreams of the future

Talking with one of my children about the future. It makes all those years of peanut butter sandwiches and carpools worth it. Don't ask me about the teenage arguments :)

What they want to do in the future...so many possibilities. Addressing egregious social problems, raising children, making money to provide for a comfortable life, trying to make the world better for the future. How to make all goals work out.

I have to look back with some satisfaction that I have already made these decisions, and for me they worked out. I did have ferrari children [don't ask me about their bipolar/teenage crises], I did make enough money to have a comfortable living, and I have had the privilege to address larger issues i.e. saving the lives of children in Russia while working for peace there.

Making things better here in the US? Slow going. Molasses. Donating/killing brain cells thru alcoholic madness. What the bloody hell---literally---ARE we doing in Iraq/Iran. Are we the Matrix, carrying out the will of another country? I hope I'm wrong.

There are terrorist threats from Iraq and Iran, yes, but for others, not for the United States. What does it mean, "existential threat." I am more sympathetic to that than you might imagine, being depressed, I am all over existential threats. But how does that translate into sending our young men and women into battle?