10th
Ink Blots and Ten-Year Plans
If you lose your purpose in life, one of the first diagnostic exercises a guidance counselor will give you is to ask what you would do if you had ten million dollars — if you never had to work again. A Rorschach inkblot test of sorts. (Incidentally, works great as an icebreaker as well.)
I never had a purpose to lose or a guidance counselor to keep track, but I have administered this test to myself several times over the years. Early results were inconclusive: one says “keep working,” another: “join the Peace Corps,” many left blank.
Over the summer, I had a long stretch of uninterrupted time to ponder on questions like this — sometimes actively, but moreso as constant background noise as I crept along my day. “If I were rich, what would I be doing instead?”
Perhaps if were wiser, I would have realized that the question was silly; that my actions at the time spoke magnitudes louder than any worries. Because I was so free, it seems safe in retrospect to assume that my leisure years would bear at least passing resemblance.
My typical day would begin at the early strike of noon. I would scramble to brush my teeth, shower, and dress — simultaneously, as possible — before clambering onto my silver workhorse and speeding towards the Strip District.
The afternoon would begin with a mug of coffee and cigar as I chewed on a book I was frantically trying to get through. (One of my goals for that summer was to read all the literature I had accumulated over four years of procrastination.)
Between alternating through the book and doodling ideas on an open notebook, after a couple of hours, I would start to get antsy. At that point, I would unlock Silverado and pick up a late-afternoon snack on the way to the library. (Another goal was to figure out how to incorporate my startup.)
Before heading to a late dinner, I would take a jog, meditate, or play frisbee depending on mood and schedule. Jogs work better for anger and lethargy, meditation for when muscles ache, frisbee trumping both anytime.
The last couple of hours would be spent working on my startup or some open-source toolkit. Hours stretching by in an empty computer lab, broken up by occasional smoke or snack break. I would emerge shortly before dawn to peddle slowly homeward, eyes bleary and red-shot.
So what would change if I were rich? What activities would continue and which would drop? Would I continue on the startups? Read more books? Exercise more? Travel the world? Retire to a small mountain monastery?
In one aspect, these questions are flawed. As detailed extensively in Stumbling on Happiness and more eloquently in Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado, we are not very good at predicting future emotion. We superimpose our present feelings and make slight situational changes that never quite compensate correctly. One day the world and its entire horizon seems dark and impossible, and the next… well, what a difference a day makes.
But in another aspect, these questions hint at a deeper conundrum. Happiness is only one facet of a life well lived. Perhaps the more relevant question is: “what do I want to be remembered for?” And then again, perhaps that’s reading too much into things. Maybe we are just a collection of chemical bonds destined to dissipate back into the great unknown.
And if so, would I be content in just being happy? Assume for a moment that this is all we get: no heaven or hell, no plastic Buddha in the sky. What would you do differently? Happiness is but a small fish next to the thunderous waves of the ocean. And yet, we work with the tools we’re graciously given.
The cruelest part of this farce is that one has to take a stand. Not making a decision is a decision in and of itself. Sophie’s Choice embodied — its most impossible application.
Working backwards for a moment, maybe the question is flawed. If there’s no possible right answer, is it a question we should be asking at all? A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? But how is it possible to not play when the question stares us in the face day-after-day?
The development practice at many software companies is increasingly tilted towards agile development: to begin building out an application without a blueprint, trusting that as it tends towards completion, its final shape will become obvious. The rationale behind this methodology is that clients don’t know what they want until they see it.
An elegant proposition: I don’t know what I want until I have it. If that’s the case, the prudent choice is to answer the question repeatedly and change course accordingly. If we are lost at sea and our destination is somewhere in the northwest, it seems reasonable to head north and west — sometimes south and east as obstacles arise — and to just check our heading ever so often.
Choosing a direction at onset and stubbornly sticking to it would work only for the most skilled navigator. The longer the journey, the larger any initial error will compound itself. Soon enough, though you were heading for New York, you’ll find yourself in Greenland. And life is a long journey — the longest one, in fact.
The problem with this conclusion is that it effectively bars one from accomplishing some dreams. Some goals are lifelong ones: to play the piano well, one must devote a couple years of study. To play it as a professional demands a lifetime of devotion. And maybe these are the goals worth pursuing: maybe a lifetime ultimately scales more than the collective remains of periods of scattered years.
These are the questions that keep me up at night. These are my half-formed demons. ‘Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all., laments Sir Alfred Tennyson. After all, it’s not the one you choose that you lose: it’s all the others, in that choice, that you truly forsake.
So time marches inexorably forwards and I’m left saddled by my own self-doubts. The best I can manage is to burn candlelight and stretch my passions in hopes that the answer lies not in darkness. People seem to think I work hard because I’m addicted to work. No, I work hard because I’m being chased by monsters. To sail the open seas is to risk life and limb by its ancient depths and howling storms. All for the glory and promises of riches on its farthest shores.
