Ars Vivendi

By day, I am a fearless conquerer of professional services marketer, and by night, I devour books, movies, music, and games in my quest to be America's Next Top Librarian. This space is dedicated to my experiences and insights as I make a career transition away from the corporate world towards public service.

Last week, I read Arthur Phillips' The Egyptologist. I was particularly struck by this passage:

"See the beautiful and heroic aspects: a boy runs for the very last time into his ramshackle home (for there must have been a last time, whether he knew it or now just then), and he shouts with pride about some accomplishment, still expecting (with the dregs of his childish instincts for love) to receive praise from the lady of the house. He shouts with pride that he has learnt to do this or that, something academic or athletic. And he receives as a mark of her definitive indifference to him either a blow or a fruity curse marinated in liquor or mere runny-nosed, vomiting silence, while new semi-siblings mewl and squat all over the room. As if such a moment is, in the child’s blossoming mind, necessarily tragic! Not at all: why assume such a moment represents a door closing, rather than the equally creaky sound of a door opening? How can the untrained ear tell the difference? Close your eyes, and if, after that tooth-grinding squeal, one feels a breeze of insight of opportunity, then you know…

Modern sociology shows that the brightest children understand the significance of this moment, and their adaptation to it can only be termed a second birth: a birth into total independence, free of any ties to illusions, free of any illusions of ties. A birth in which the child becomes both his own parents. He alone will make himself from this day on. The greatest act of creation will now begin, the creation of myself…

But, if you are unable to realize your way out of childish delusions, if you blunder on, relying on the love of a mother, the trust-worthy interest of the priest or the teacher or the employer or the lover or the officer, the benevolent concern of the rich for the poor; the jolly companionship and foul-weathered loyalty of trusted pals, well, then you are doomed to a life of childhood. You will have no real adulthood, and no hope of making an achievement worthy of permanent note."

From the time I was 17, I've made it a personal mission to travel my life boldly. At times, my mission has faltered when I've grown complacent but it's never failed - I eventually find myself preparing again to cast my fate upon the waters. Four years ago, I was shaken into fresh action and chose to pursue higher education in library and information science. It was a largely selfish act since the professional outlook for librarians isn't very robust, but I wanted to give myself the gift of a second birth into a world of my own making.

This blog is dedicated to my personal ars vivendi (art of living).