Memory Lain 17 September 1998

So I'm noodling around looking at the Archipelago sites, and dang me if one of them wasn't an old PBoT contributor. That's "Pandora's Box of Tricks", a long-ago web site run by Alexis Massie, who does afterdinner now. Must have been back in... wow, 1996. The Internet equivalent of the late 19th century. The site itself is actually not on the air anymore either, unusual that. Dirty laundry and old newspapers make up 90% of the content of the Web, I sometimes think. (I do sometimes think. Sometimes.) (I'm losing the thread here.) I wrote a few things for it, probably the first things I ever had put up on the Web. I mean, other than order forms and advertising copy at work. Oh, you know.

I started digging around and found that I'd made a copy of the pages on this machine for some reason. I am not too sure about that link to them, I'm not. I read over them, and my general reaction was "yech." Well, no, that's not completely true. The pieces were presented in reverse chronological order, and their yechiness seemed to diminish as I steered toward the past. I'm not sure if that was just habituation or what. I think it's an example of Sophomore Album Syndrome.

Strange to link back in time like that, though. And believe me, two years is a l-o-n-g time to my small-horizoned brain. Standing description of time, by Me:

The Past	3 Weeks Ago	Now	3 Weeks Ahead	The Future

I think about what I was doing then, and what's up now, and very little has changed. The apartment is messier. My hair's shorter. But I'm still working at (essentially) the same place, still not sure if I'm going to have a job in six months time, still doing mostly the same mix of miscellaneous Web odd jobs.

Meanwhile, it feel like most of the other people I knew then have shot off in all directions like fireworks. Starting companies, starting families, starting junk habits - they're not all fabulous success stories, but they're doing something. Not sure what I think about this. Some of the difference is age. Most of my friends back in, say, 1994, were at least 10 years younger than me, some twice that. It's not surprising that they're moving around, trying out different jobs or schools or just ways of living. It's also a matter of ambition: they had it, I didn't - don't, really.

But, do I mind that? I don't know. I certainly have no desire to be a Vice President - I don't think. "Career goals," my God. None. To not be unemployable in 10 years. I can't even imagine it. Meanwhile, honestly at times I'm quite content with just what I've got right now. I make enough money, there's no heavy lifting, we get gummi worms sometimes, what do I want?

I don't think it's an economic gap that stings. More that people I knew, who started out knowing as little as I did about all of this, since "all of this" didn't exist mostly, are now out doing things that they really want to do. Not their jobs, usually, more personal projects. What they have, that I seem to very vaguely remember, that I miss, is that wanting. The desire to do a thing, that is of sufficient strength to propel one into the doing of it.

Me, I'm just all #FOFOFO these days. Eh.

Willfully blind self-indulgent nebbish or amusingly quirky old coot? And how bout that local sports team? Discuss among yourselves.

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