I have been a college student for almost 5 years now (since August 2003) and I still don’t know what I want to do. I am a Software and Information Systems student by major designation, but anyone who meets me (that didn’t know me when I was a computer dork) doesn’t seem to believe that. Honestly, I don’t know that I believe it anymore. I like computers and know a reasonable amount about them, but there seems to be more to me than that. In my Digital Photography class I have already (3 weeks into the class) been designated as the go-to guy for technical or artistic questions. What is it about me that makes my knowledge so versatile? In some ways I feel like I should be some sort of engineer. Engineers are technical, but also have so much of an artistic influence on things. I can’t seem to find what it is that I am supposed to do. So many of my friends know their place so easily it seems. Jeff has graduated with his economics degree and is moving on to a PhD in Economics… that’s dedication to the field. I find it often quite funny that there is no doctoral degree available in the arts, but then I remind myself, that it is because at that level it technically changes fields. If you put enough thought into art to obtain a PhD, it is no longer art, it is a branch of Philosophy (Aesthetics). Not that it matters much to me, since I can’t seem to pick a field long enough to want to pursue an advanced degree like that.
I feel like I am lacking guidance, and like there is something wrong with me. When does that little buzzer in my head get to go off and tell me that I have found something that I should be doing for my life? I have a good feeling about Art, but its not something I can see myself doing for my entire life, primarily because I don’t feel that Art is something that can be commercialized without sucking its intrinsic value from it. Art is personal, Art is love. When you put a price on Art you are putting a price on the soul of its creator.
There are days when I wake up and I can think of nothing but writing, and there are days when I wake up and can think of nothing but some form of art (changes seasonally) and then there are days when I wake up and I can think of nothing but source code (then there are the days when my cock wakes me up, and we are not going there in this blog). Does this mean my career has a multiple personality disorder (I know thats not the name for it anymore, but its prettier than Dissociative Identity Disorder)?
I wish I could just wake up and know what my purpose is. Everyone else is in their lives already, I’m just sitting here, and I’m pissed at myself.