Somewhere I got off track

For any friends who eventually actually read this blog: every once in awhile, if a group of us are together at a bar or something and you see me zoning out, sort of staring off into space, let me give you an explanation of what's going on. I'll look tired or drunk. I might be, but that's not it. When that happens, I'm "in it" (as they say in Garden State). I'm contemplating something very personal, something that has suddenly come up (or has been creeping up for some time) and that needs my attention for awhile.

If you want to know me well, wait until the group is breaking up, then take a walk with me and ask me about it.

This happened a week and a half ago, Friday night at a bar with the other grad students. We'd just seen Shaun of the Dead (which was surprisingly good) and were talking about something or other at the local pub. And, sitting there on Friday night, surrounded by my closest friends in Philadelphia -- who, relative to my other closest friends, really aren't that close at all -- and I had the distinct feeling that I'd gotten off course...
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I formulated a theory back in high school that, if the fourth dimension is a time line, then the fifth dimension must be a time plane. What I mean by this is that we exist in one line of events, a continuous stream of choices, causes and effects, if you will. But we could have made different choices, gone on different lines. And all these potential lines spread out across a plane of time. Real original, huh? What do you want from me, I was in high school. Anyway, this framework stuck with me.

I used to ruminate on this, thinking about all the tremendous things I was getting to do. I mean, if not for an errant letter from Jenn Kirby, which almost never reached me because of a lame environmental club sponsor, I never would have found Larry Bohlen, never would have started MCSEA, never would have been up-and-coming in the SSC... My life has been riddled with little choices like that. And for a long time, it seemed like all the choices had led me to the best of all possible paths. MCSEA. SSC Trainings. SSC Director. I was making decisions that mattered, making a real difference in people's lives at an age when you simply shouldn't be able to do the things I was doing. Life wasn't perfect, there was a foundational loneliness that was with me then just as it's with me now, but I was living a life that I loved and that no one else gets to lead.

At the bar, I realized that I'm no longer on that track. I'm a grad student now. Sure, I'm on the Sierra Club Board, but my Sierra Club work is half-assed now. EVERYTHING I do is half-assed now. It has to be. I've realized that I'm smart enough to do well in my PhD program, but there aren't enough hours in the day to do that and give all the other parts of my life the time they need. So the Sierra Club suffers. Dancing suffers. Friends and community suffer. Yes, even my poker game suffers. I can't do it all well, so I do it all not-so-well.

I know the choice that set me on this path. The rule is "win when it matters most." No one wins all the time, but win it matters most, you have to. In Bob's office, June of 2002, sitting through a "conflict resolution" with John Kamp, I lost. And I knew what that meant. I wanted to deny it, I thought it could be remedied and in some ways it has been. But make no mistake: in some other time line, I won that day. Or that day didn't come to pass at all. In that time line, I'm not in grad school. In that time line, I'm not on the Sierra Club. But that is the path where I am my best self.

I still have a good life, not really one I should complain about. But I did get off track, and I can't help but think this is not the life I was supposed to lead.

Time for class. Robert Keohane, Regime Theory. What am I doing here?