The Final Week

    I honestly can’t wait to leave Atlanta.  With each passing day I feel more and more that I don’t belong here.  So infrequently do I see the glimmer of passion or inspiration in the people that surround me and life for them is so safe and formulaic and predictable.  When I mention my trip, people ask me if I’ll be lonely or they seem surprised that one could survive away from modern American society for so long.  But for me its what I’ve been waiting my whole life for, to escape from the opinions, insecurities, and intellectual dilution of the people whom I so commonly am put in contact with.  Its difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t been through this, but I recently realized in life that many of the priorities and goals that I had adopted weren’t mine, they were ones which I had convinced myself were important but were in fact the product of what everyone around me believed.

    I thought about the things that I really wanted to do in life, in an idealized version of life, where you get to do whatever you want to.  Then I decided that that was exactly what I was going to do – to explore the world, write constantly, create beautiful art, and spend time with people who truly love me, inspire me, and make me laugh.  For some, I suppose these are too lofty of goals in life, but for me, I know that I’ll never be satisfied with anything less.  Why sit in a research laboratory day in and day out, running mundane experiments and counting away the days of my life.  Why work in restaurants and wait on pompous, self-important customers while having to listen to the bickering of petty, argumentative coworkers.  Why sit in an office staring at a computer screen all day and commit myself to a cause that I don’t even agree with and which gives me no satisfaction in life.  So it’s time to move on, time to lead the life that I want to live and time to get away from the society with which I so vehemently disagree.