{"id":2151,"date":"2014-07-16T12:49:09","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T20:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/?p=2151"},"modified":"2014-07-16T12:49:09","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T20:49:09","slug":"the-search-for-time-lost-n-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iwasmisinformed.com\/?p=2151","title":{"rendered":"the search for time lost, n-0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere comes a time in your life – and if you haven\u2019t felt it yet, trust me, you will – when you have to stop trying to be the person you were, and let yourself become the person you are.”<\/em><\/p>\n

-me, June 30, 2004<\/em><\/p>\n


<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThere comes a time in every man\u2019s life where you have to stop trying to be Nuke and start trying to be Crash.”<\/em><\/p>\n

-me, repeatedly, for years now<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Three years ago, I was at Disneyland with friends. \u00a0We had been rampaging through Disney California Adventure, a park that didn\u2019t exist until 2001 – and which I\u2019d never visited until 2009. It was a brand new experience, one unencumbered by any past baggage, something entirely new to explore and experience, and in three previous trips, we\u2019d enjoyed it immensely. \u00a0And after taking it in for the fourth time, there I was, with my wife, sat on a bench with the sun setting, Sleeping Beauty\u2019s Castle over our shoulder, and the sounds of \u201cPut On Your Sunday Clothes\u201d drifting up from\u00a0the end of Main Street USA.<\/p>\n

It was the dream. \u00a0It was everything I\u2019d hoped my life would be back in 1989. \u00a0Sure, life wasn\u2019t perfect, but the things that weren\u2019t were on the other side of the bubble. \u00a0I had my girl. I had friends, both here and waiting back home. \u00a0I even had some family again. \u00a0I was good at my job, I didn\u2019t hate it, I was a year removed from going to Europe, the Commodores were in the College World Series, all was basically right with the world. \u00a0More or less.<\/p>\n

We went back a few weeks ago. \u00a0Aside from an experiment which successfully proved that we have no business on a bus, it was glorious. The parks, the food, just being able to get away from it all and have a few days together in a dream world. \u00a0It was the kickoff to another emotional roller coaster brought about by sports – Stanford stood between Vanderbilt and another trip to the College World Series, and the Dores brought it off. \u00a0Then beat Louisville, UC-Irvine, beat Texas (it took two tries and ten innings, but we miracled through) and then beat Virginia in three to clinch the first national championship in baseball ever\u2026and this is a team that started playing in 1886.<\/p>\n

Dreams do come true, as Joe Fisher said on the final strike.<\/p>\n

What was<\/em> the dream? \u00a0Did I really want to be Vice-President? Did I want to be in the Senate? Did I actually want to be teaching political science in some small private liberal-arts school with a great basketball team? Those were things I thought could happen, but not things I really wanted – because I wasn\u2019t seriously thinking that far ahead, ever. Looking back, the dream came down to three things: my girl, my crew, and adventures.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago, to the day, I arrived here with my girl in pursuit of an adventure. Left my crew, left my job, left the East Coast, and came out here in search of a fresh start and the ever-nebulous big dream. \u00a0I wanted to see if I could make it here, partly inspired by the detritus of the dot-com boom and partly because of the need to play in the big leagues. Which – along with a College World Series title – has put me back in mind of Bull Durham<\/em> quotes like the one above. Or like this one:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I was in the show. I was in the show for 21 days once. \u00a021 greatest days of my life. You never handle your own luggage in the show, somebody else carries your bags. It was great. You hit white balls for batting practice, the ballparks are like cathedrals, the hotels all have room service, and the women all have long legs and brains.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I honestly thought it could be months before I found a job. \u00a0I had specifically not thought about what might happen, because I didn\u2019t want to set myself up for expectations. I just wanted to take it as it developed naturally rather than get my hopes up on unrealistic things. \u00a0(The three things I wanted were a gambling stop in Reno, where I got cleaned out in about 4 minutes, a DirecTV dish, which I got, and a VW Beetle. Which I got, except it took two years and was a Rabbit by then. But I digress.)<\/p>\n

Instead, after about three weeks, I was a contractor with a certain fruit company in Cupertino. It was chaos the first few months, and there were a couple of days when I wondered whether my badge was going to work in the morning, and then I was hired on staff. \u00a0And less than a year after that, there was a sort-of promotion and a job shift. I had an actual office with an actual door, I had a short email address, I had a company AmEx and got sent on show support for ten days. For the only time in my high tech career, there was no friend-of-a-friend, there was no recommendation, there was nothing but my resume and my skills and my own dubious charm. And I made it.<\/em> Dream accomplished.<\/p>\n

Then I got sick.<\/p>\n

I probably could have sought some accommodation for the physical infirmity. Maybe doing so would have alleviated the mental health struggles. Not<\/em> doing so was the second biggest mistake of my entire life. \u00a0Instead, I panicked, and I ran, because I thought the key to my future was being technical. Maybe that was true and maybe it\u2019s not, but I wound up heading right back into what I\u2019d done before\u2026and have been doing ever since. \u00a0And lately it\u2019s been hard as hell to shake the thought that I may actually be doing this for years to come, that I\u2019ve maxed out at triple-A, that my brief sojourn in the big leagues was just that.<\/p>\n

It might not be the worst thing. \u00a0As long as I can still make some money, take all the leave I\u2019m offered (the only real perk of the current job), and make an effort to go out on vacation and travel and go down the pub and win trivia and spend time with friends and take my downtime and enjoy life away from work\u2026that wouldn\u2019t be the worst way to kill the next twenty years, would it? Find some way to make work into something I can live with and just enjoy the rest of my life otherwise?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s tough. But then, you get told unrealistic things as a kid. I\u2019m not going to be the first man on Mars, because this country doesn\u2019t even have the capability of putting a person in space without help from the Russians anymore. \u00a0I\u2019m not going to be President, or even Vice-President, because that\u2019s something that only happens for two or three people per decade. \u00a0Forty-three individuals have been President of the United States, ever (and one of them got counted twice, and another only stuck in the job for a month). \u00a0I\u2019m not going to cure cancer, because there\u2019s no such thing as monolithic \u201ccancer\u201d and besides, I haven\u2019t made an A in a lab science course since eighth grade. Sure, you might be in the top one-tenth-of-one-percent in the country in terms of IQ, but guess what? \u00a0That means that 300,000 people are just as smart as you or smarter.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Know what the difference between hitting .250 and .300 is? It’s 25 hits. 25 hits in 500 at bats is 50 points, okay? There’s 6 months in a season, that’s about 25 weeks. That means if you get just one extra flare a week – just one – a gorp… you get a groundball, you get a groundball with eyes… you get a dying quail, just one more dying quail a week… and you’re in Yankee Stadium.”<\/em><\/p>\n


<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve learned a lot of things in ten years. \u00a0But if I had to nail it down to just one thing that life in Silicon Valley has taught me, I\u2019d say this: the world is an unpredictable place.<\/em> Not everything follows the rules, no matter how much you wish they would. Randomness is real and luck is real, and sometimes the luck breaks your way and sometimes it doesn\u2019t. Life is not predictable, fortune is not something you can teach in class and turn into a reproducible process, there is no standard rich and famous contract, and much like college football, there is no god in high tech but Loki.<\/p>\n

Just because you give it your best effort and try your damnedest, you\u2019re not guaranteed that everything will always work out in the end. \u00a0Nothing is promised to you and the future isn\u2019t real until you can put your hand on it. \u00a0The lead isn\u2019t going to come into the back of shop and help with the laptops, the boss isn\u2019t actually going to set up cross-training opportunities, the Sony rep isn\u2019t going to come through with the free K710, the second interview isn\u2019t going to result in an offer. All you can do is try to bend the curve of probability as best you can, through effort and influence and preparation and whatever else.<\/p>\n

And if (when) it doesn\u2019t turn out like you expected? Puke and rally and try again tomorrow. Harold Hill doesn\u2019t every time marry Marion the Librarian, and when the prospect you\u2019re mentoring gets fast-tracked to the big club, you might find yourself cut from the squad. But sometimes, there\u2019s an opening for a manager at Visalia, and you have to rethink what you\u2019re doing and whether it\u2019s isn\u2019t time to take your career in a different direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Nuke\u2019s scared because his eyelids are jammed and his old man\u2019s here. We need a live\u2013 is it a live rooster? We need a live rooster to take the curse off Jose\u2019s glove. And nobody seems to know what to get Millie or Jimmy for their wedding present. Is that about right? We\u2019re dealing with a lot of shit.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s called life. \u00a0Best to just get on with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere comes a time in your life – and if you haven\u2019t felt it yet, trust me, you will – when you have to stop trying to be the person you were, and let yourself become the person you are.” -me, June 30, 2004 \u201cThere comes a time in every man\u2019s life where you have … <\/p>\n

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