What Should I Do With My Life? part II

"All who wander are not lost." - The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R Tolkein

"What is the 'direction' of the earth in its journey; where are the atoms 'going' when they spin?" - Hitchhiker Extraordinaire Sissy Hankshaw in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins. 

I imagine the great Tahitian sailors who discovered, then populated Hawaii.  They launched out in small voyaging canoes filled with fruit, chickens, maybe a pig or two, setting out over the Pacific for weeks at a time.  Searching for what?  Were they trying to flee or trying find?  Or both?  We know that they found the Hawaiian Islands and then created an oceanic highway of navigating canoes, bring people and things back and forth for generations.  But those initial discoverers on the sea - did they have a sense of purpose?  Did they know what they were looking for?  Perhaps even without destination, they had intent.

Last night I sat over a wonderful Italian dinner with two friends.  We were taking a break from Filipino food, and found a place with a surprisingly good wine list and great classic pastas.  We are all wandering in our own way.  Jose is my dear friend and current traveling companion [remember in the 80s when sports announcers didn't know what to do with Martina Navratalova's lovers in the friends and families box, and Dick Endberg would refer to them as her "traveling companions."?  Jose is not that kind of traveling companion.  But I digress-].

Jose, like me, is an American-born half-Filipino.  He's lived in Southeast Asia for five years.  Originally he had direction.  He came here to open up a clothing store in Bangkok.  He did so and did it successfully, until, as is often the case in Bangkok, things went very, very bad.  There was corruption, theft and treachery.  He quietly closed the store and fled to Manila.  Now he works from his computer in his studio in Makati.  He's able to support himself this way, but I can tell he's not thriving.  He's not passionate.  I recognize the vacancy in his eyes.  Jose also lost both of his parents within the last four years.  Losing both parents does more than just hurt.  It can make one feel unmoored.  Really alone.  More grown-up than we want to be.  It forces us to question where we are going.  So now Jose is trying to figure out what will give him meaning in the next phase of his life. 

He wants to try something different now.  He has a vague sense about impacting change in the Philippines.  He has both the talent and the connections to do so.  But how?  What's the plan?  Where to start?

Carlos sits across from me.  He was born in Manila but raised in Negros Occidental.  He has a vision, but seems reluctant to follow the path.  He was in the seminary for four years, but realized that he has an artists spirit and the high structure of abby life wasn't for him.  So he left and pursued his passion for visual arts.  He's been reasonably successful - given commissions and teaching gigs.  He loves both.  He's also been offered a full scholarship in fine arts at a university in Manila, as well as the backing of a highly important patron in the Manila arts scene.  I ask him whether school is important for his career and he responds - yes, it's very important.  Yet he's hesitating and pushing it off for another year.

In my experience, "one year" is a placeholder that really means, "I can't deal with this right now."  I told my best friend back home, "a year is for pussies."  If you have a plan, then figure out how to put that plan in action next week, in three months or in six months.  A year means you are scared or frozen.

I push Carlos about his reluctance.  We talk about it all day and night.  I'm that annoying aunty that doesn't know when to stop.  He has dozens of excuses; none of them very good. 

- The scholarship pays for school and rent, but not for food and living.
- I need to save money for a year to afford this.
- I'll have to take remedial courses that I've already taken.
- Manila is a big city.  I get lost a lot. 

No one said change is easy.  Why is he so reluctant?

But the better question, for me, is - Why am I so obsessive about his decision?  Why am I pushing him so hard?

Maybe I long for his sense of vision and opportunity and can't stand to see him cast it aside.  Jose and I are both drooling over Carlos's sense of direction.  You have a map!  Move in the right direction!

Is it about school?  My dirty little secret is that I didn't graduate from college.  I thrived at U.C. Davis.  I was a scholar-athlete and active in many clubs and had a vibrant social life while maintaining a 3.9 gpa.  I got my Phi Beta Kappa key and received a few awards for minority scholars.  In my senior year my whole extended family came out to watch me walk in two graduation ceremonies.  I walked; I was six units shy of a degree, and I was supposed to complete them during the summer.  I never completed the work, which was really the equivalent of three final papers.  I have no idea why I didn't follow through.

Let me repeat: THREEPOINTFRICKIN'NINE! I'm smart but I'm no super brain.  I earned my grades through effort and consistency.  I pulled all nighters just to stay caught up in my reading.  I went to the library to read literary criticism so that I'd have multiple perspectives for class discussions.  My hand was constantly in the air and my papers were in early.  I was Hermione. 

Until I dropped it all at the end.

At the end of the evening, tipsy from a great bottle of Italian primitivo, I tell Carlos that I believe in his ability to make the right decisions.  "You'll figure it all out in the right way for you," I say.  Even through the red tannic haze, it smells like bullshit.

"I was intimidated of you at first," he tells me, "but I had a good time talking to you."

I feel that the three of us have unshakeable confidence in each other's potential, but no idea what to do with our own.