Reinvention (Con't)

I’ve been thinking more about reinvention, especially in light of Stephen’s amazing post on the subject yesterday. My favorite snippet of writing from 2006 thus far?

You know how you feel that you’re on the verge of something important, but just can’t wrap your mind around it? That’s how I feel. Of course, I may just be deluding myself – I’m very good at that, and have deluded myself about a lot of things last year and during the course of my life. And I doubt that anyone will ever actually pay me to do the sort of things I want to do – we’re all so wrapped up these days in funding competitions, commercialization, paperwork, and all that. And maybe there isn’t a magic rainbow-land where every day of my life will feel meaningful and engaged and complete. And maybe I shouldn’t be typing this, and maybe you shouldn’t be reading it. But forget all that. This year isn’t last year, and I will be charting new directions to points unknown. Maybe I’ll founder, maybe not. But it’s now, I think, or never – and I couldn’t live with never.

Um…yeah. Exactly.

And it’s NOW because, at least in my little corner (and I think Stephen’s) the world is a very, very different place from what it used to be. There is so much to know. So much to connect to. So much to learn. And that’s the sickness of the Read/Write Web, isn’t it? When you start guzzling the Kool-Aid and really wrap your brain around it (delusions and all) everything else starts to become, well, I dunno…tedious. Irrelevant. Inconsequential. It’s like there’s this huge buffet of energy and ideas and people and content at your fingertips but someone’s telling you to keep eating the grilled cheese in the cafeteria. (Oh yeah…it’s the guy who pays your salary.) But the thing is, I don’t think I have the time anymore to keep eating that, to not be learning and connecting and contributing as much as I possibly can. Not anymore. It’s become too much a part of my practice, of who I am.