Truesday: Back With No Plan

Dude didn’t seem entirely sure what to make of my introduction. Perhaps I came on a bit too familiar, like we’d already been friends for years and I was just meeting him up for coffee to tell him I’d been dating his mom for three months (and she's mad preggers yo!). That’s how I roll when I’m delirious and my ears still haven’t popped from my previous two airborne legs. I considered capping off my apprehension-fomenting greeting with did you pick up on how super-gay he is yet?

You know, alcoholism and homosexuality. That’s what strangers like to discuss when they’re forced together for extended periods of time, perhaps in: broken elevators, bank teller lines, and foxholes.

But the guy had already put the book down, less nonplussed and more unfazed. It was as if he only displayed that shredded tome in order to gauge the intellectual interests of his fellow passengers. And if that’s the case, then I must point out its failings as a usable index for intellect, because even I’ve read Wilde.

Regardless of potential brain measure, we never talk about the exploits of Oscar again. Conversation flows throughout the flight. Dude just graduated with an English-type degree, minor in Philosophy or some shit. Maybe it was Political Science. Sociology? Matters not. Definitely some Liberal Arts double-whammy of unemployable efforts, crowned by a degree in English Literature. And it turns out the guy isn’t that big on books anyway.

Fascinating.

“It was kinda what I fell into.”

Huh? Crazy talk.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so that’s where I ended up.”

Wow. It sounds so shitty when it’s phrased that way, but I’m pretty sure most of us got our degrees under the same railroading pretense. How the hell was I supposed to know, back at age 20, what I wanted to be for the rest of my life? Engineering degrees sound Math-Olympics-tough, and Kinesiology is for people who can do more than three pull-ups without involving a paramedic team. Fuck it. I’ll get a Psych degree*! Whatever the hell that means.

Fella just kept on going with the conversation, nonchalantly brushing off the entire concepts of purpose and ambition. “I guess I have to find a job soon. I’ve been graduated for a while now.”

“What, like be a lit teacher or something? Maybe go to Grad school?”

“Oh hell no. I really don’t know anything about teaching literature, and the last thing I want right now is more school. Racked-up almost a hundred and sixty hours just to get the degree I have now. I’m too tired to continue that mess.” Mess? “But I have a few friends who work at this sandwich shop up north. They said they’d get me in there if I apply soon.”

A sandwich… shop?

”You sure you want to work at a sandwich shop, man? You don’t even need a high school diploma for that kind of work. Hell, in most places you don’t even need a social security number.”

“Yeah, I thought about that and, I’m cool with it. I’ll get to be around my friends, figuring shit out. You know?”

Do I know… what?

Dear lord his plan was scary, but in a very real way, I really did know. As delusional as I was from the lack of sleep and ill-feeling from all that awful chemical airline air pumped into my lungs, I could still completely relate to where this dude was. His life position. I felt I had to confirm him, without supporting him. As if he gave a shit about some random asshole’s bullshit mentoring tendencies.

“You know you’ll never figure it out, right? Never.” Perhaps it wasn’t the most pleasant remark, but, fuck it. It’s true.

“Probably not. But so what?”

So. What?

Soooooooo what?

What’s that? Oh, that? So what. Soooooooo what?

Damnit if he wasn’t right, even if accidentally so. “But so what?” Shit. How can I argue with that? Sometimes it really pays to not have a plan. Takes the pressure off. Without the suffocating blanket of results and expectations collapsing your soul, it makes anything you do fresh and exciting. Even sandwiches. No time ever feels “lost”.

I got into Austin last Tuesday, after talking to that dude somewhere over Nevada desert, at six in the morning (that already-awful 3:30am delivery got pushed, and shoved, and dragged, and...). Eighteen gloriously exhausting hours of air travel. So I didn’t write a column last week. Sometimes you have to skip a routine to put things in perspective. Takes the edge off. Without the suffocating blanket of schedules and word-tending collapsing your soul, it makes everything you do feel restful and invigorating. It sucks to miss a day for writing, but, whatever man.

Most importantly, I hope that dude makes the best sandwiches ever destroyed by human mouths.

*I didn’t actually get a degree in Psychology. But Economics hasn’t proven to be that far off.