There are some days, more than others, where I can tell that I really miss being in school.
All of a sudden, in the middle of answering someone's question, I will realize that I have subconsciously been analyzing--the last movie I saw, the last book I read, something I read a while ago but have just suddenly had an ephiphany about.
And at these moments I miss school, because when you have these epiphanies, nobody looks at you as though you're utterly crazy. If you dare voice these epiphanies, they nod along because even if they don't agree with the line of reasoning--they follow.
These days I don't voice these things aloud, because in an office environment, people tend to treat such behaviors as...well...crazy.
In all fairness: how many people stop, frozen, in the middle of their workdays because a sonnet is echoing in their heads. Or because, as happened the other day while sitting in the midst of what felt a swarm of people who were all talking all at once, suddenly Walt Whitman made much more sense?
I'm willing to bet: not many.
This happens to be more and more frequently lately. E.D. Hirsch pops up in my recreational reading. It suddenly seems important to re-attempt The Great Gatsby. (I didn't much care for it the first time around, but then, I was seventeen. Maybe I'd like it now...although after reading This Side of Paradise, I'm pretty sure my original impression of Gatsby was pretty much spot-on: Fitzgerald writes wonderful prose, but I pretty much hate all of his characters.) People are starting to resemble book characters, book characters are echoing elsewhere in the real world.
At the moment, I'm treating this as a cue to look back into Ph.D. programs. We'll see if this time around I manage to stick out the whole process. Who knows? Maybe I'll find another way to silence the echoes. Or at least quiet them a little.
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2 comments:
I feel ya. Since graduating, I actually have re-read Gatsby. And Lord of the Flies. Right now I'm working my way through Atlas Shrugged. Nobody at the office wants to discuss such things. They all want to know why I haven't seen The Avengers yet.
It's a delicate balance, I find. Seeing The Avengers didn't disappoint. But most things I wanted to say about it...people would have looked at me funny.
I've tried to determine if there's a way to just shut down the analytical part of my brain, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's always running quietly in the background even when I think it's gone...
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