08 VI 2002 - 11:33 - quotidianus18

to be called the entry about the future:

one of my greatest fears is that of irrelevancy. this makes me wonder about just what it is that i want to do with my life. everyone who's speaking from above an arbitrary line (say, about twenty years or so) tells me that i don't have to figure out what i want to do with myself until much later. that some of them still haven't figured it out.

and while i realize this, there are two things that prevent me from ceasing to wonder. 1) i'm a worrier by nature and 2) i'm egotistical and convinced that somehow i must know what i want to do because i'm special, dammit.

so, you know, i toy with the thought of majoring in classics, in celtic studies, in political science, in history; i, who have two years left of high school and with most colleges not requiring a declaration of focus until at least sophomore year, and it's all so ridiculous it makes me want to laugh and cry all at the same time. and then i want to cry, because what use is all of this? i tell myself that to build things, to keep machinery running, that has never been the province of literature, that there must be some other thing it brings...

part of it is that i do indeed have to decide now. if i want to become a musician, i'd better start easing up on the schoolwork and actually taking arts courses and practicing three hours a day. right now, i get by on about an hour and a half a week. if i'm lucky. which if i want to be a soloist is simply not enough. in fact, it's probably late for me to become a soloist, which is fine with me, since i've never been that comfortable on stage; there is safety in numbers, and so chamber music and orchestras are probably the field for me. also: they are not. realistically, i have no discipline for practicing, to spur self-improvement, at least where music is concerned. but that very possibility, the knowledge that i could if so inclined make it work with a little more effort -- that's agony. if i were just a little less talented, if there were no hope of my success in any field save one, i might breathe more easily.

the world of possibility lies open wide before me. i've been so damn lucky and i feel as if i'm squandering it. me! at fifteen! squandering! but there you have it. i've never been good at making decisions and this is not the place to start.

because looking realistically at other majors: what am i going to do but teach? if suddenly we were returned to a medieval culture, would i have a place in life? even the most 'practical' of my thoughts -- the foreign service -- wouldn't necessarily last, would likely shuttle me back to teaching eventually, would in a world without so much travel be of limited use...

so what should i do, realistically? some of my impulse is to learn a trade that may someday be halfway useful. but.

i will aim for the heights, in order that what i do accomplish, though it be only a fraction of the goal, may be something of its own. the only problem is that then by my goals, i will be a failure...

last night, i listened, transfixed on my bed with arms outstretched and staring at the spot just ahead of my eyes, to shostakovich's thirteenth symphony, settings of poems by yevgeny yevtushenko. an excerpt from the one entitled 'career' follows:

Itak, da zdravstvuyet kar'year,
Kogda kar'year takova,
Kak u Shyekspira y pastyera,
Nyutona y Tolstovo, L'va!

Zachyem ikh gryazyu pokrivali?
Talant, talant, kak nye klyeyimi.
Zabiti tye, kto proklinali,
No pomnyat tyekh, kovo klyali.

Vsye tye, kto rvalis' v stratosfyeru,
Vrachi, chto gibli ot kholyer
Vot eti dyelali kar'yeru!
Ya sikh kar'yer byeru primyer.

so then, long live a career,
when it is a career like that of
Shakespeare or Pasteur,
Newton or Tolstoy (Leo!).

Why were they abused?
Talent is talent, whatever you call it.
The people who cursed are forgotten,
but those they cursed we remember.

All those who aimed at the stratosphere,
the doctors who died fighting cholera,
they followed careers.
I take their careers as a model.

(as far as i can tell, the translation was done by keith anderson; in any case, all of the above comes from the white-box set program notes [naxos label] of shostakovich's fifteen symphonies.)

time will tell. about everything; about the man i grow to be, about the faith i come to profess, about the trade i will learn and what i will get from life. the difficulty is in the choosing, in the waiting.

perhaps i am too much a chronic worrier. i went with my sister to a NCCO concert (sir simon rattle conducting, surprisingly), since the parents are out of town and she was playing the concert. i got a ride home from someone else as we'd agreed and she went to an after-concert party (no guests) across the street. i figured it would take about an hour; i got home at 11:30, so i figured she'd be home around 1.

at about 1:45, i began to pace nervously. was she attacked? did i choose a really bad parking spot in a bad and poorly lit area for us when we were on our way there? was she ok? had she passed out? should i call the police and file a missing-person report? 2, and i couldn't get rid of the sick feeling in my stomach. should i call? was this my fault? 2:30, and i was lying in bed, having left a message on the machine for her to wake me up when she got home. couldn't sleep. lay half-awake on the pillow, waiting for the door to slam. 2:45, and she came back and told me she'd gone out for a drink with the rest of her section after the reception.

am i too much a chronic worrier? i was asking myself this even while i was pacing in shirt and boxers, telling myself that she's a grown woman and that she can take care of herself. but that seed of doubt was too strong to let me rest...

people have commented that if ever anyone should be expected to develop a split personality, it would be me.

but here's my question: was i being stupid and paternalistic? or was i simply being a good and concerned brother? other options (write-in) are, as always, welcome.

take care.