The Divergence of Lives and Thinning of the Herd

Rob from Robservations relates his experience of growing in his personal and professional lives, and in the process, he outgrows people that he was once close to. I can certainly identify with his experience in substance, although not on the same scale. Rob has seen and experienced many things in his life that I would very much like to experience one day. I am a young enough man to believe that some of these things will happen, yet old enough to know that some of them won't.

Rob's main question is whether having goals, dreams, and ambitions inevitably leads to solitude. I think the answer to that question is no, but I do believe that it leads to a serious thinning of the herd, if you will. I've known quite a few people from high school, college, and even law school, who were content to live out their lives in one place (often the place they grew up in). This is by no means a bad thing, and if it makes them happy, that's what they should do. I was re-introduced to this phenomenon firsthand when I went to my high school's class of 1996 reunion with a friend (I graduated in '97). Many of the people I knew from that class have never left the area, and some of them have never even left the county or the town. They have their lives there, their inner circle, their consistency, and it works for them. Like Rob and Nikki, however, that would not work for me, and I know this. I don't think that being a wandering nomad is the key to happiness, but I also feel that limiting the experience of life to something small, narrow, and myopic would make me very unhappy. While I certainly would like any kids I have in the future to have some roots during childhood, I'd also like them to have some vision, some culture, and for them to at least have a taste of the many great and wonderful things the world has to offer.

As I've become a professional, started experiencing more things in life and meeting more people, I will definitely say that the herd of people to whom I am very close has thinned substantially. Interestingly, the people who have remained are not necessarily the ones who are living geographically close to me. Rather, it's people with the same vision and desires as me, the same zeal with which they pursue their dreams, and the same hunger to experience life in general...those are the ones who are closest to my heart. I'm not sorry to have met the people who have come through my life who don't share my same vision as laid out here...in fact, I thank God for them because they have been part of the rich tapestry of my life in that they have helped provide me a context and contrast to my own perspective of how to experience my life to the fullest. In closing, I once told someone re: romantic relationships that, "Opposites may attract, but similars stay together." Personal growth, differing viewpoints, and divergent lives do not lead to solitude, only to a smaller, more intimate inner circle.

Growing Pains

"There are times where I look at the people around me and truly envy them. I envy them for their positions in life… their views of the world… their satisfaction with their own little well-established circles. You see, no matter how much I try, no matter how much I smile, flirt, laugh, joke, whatever…no matter what…I will never be in that circle. I've seen too much. Experienced too much. Tried too much.

I've sat on the Great Wall of China. Stared across the fjords of Norway. Walked the bridge into Gamla-stan. Looked up at the beautiful ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. I've smelled the polluted waters of Indonesia and enjoyed immensely the simplest of meals in the Philippines. I've drank beer and watched rugby in Australia, danced the samba in Brazil. I've wept tears away from my eyes at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and felt the winds whip across my cheeks at Normandy. I've sipped coffee in Paris, sipped chianti in Sicily, sipped ouzo in Istanbul, shot vodka in Moscow, and sipped sake in Tokyo. I've seen the barber shops in Seoul, the majesty of Taipei 101, and watched the rain whip across the palace gates in London.
Trust me, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I've experienced a lot that this world has to offer, and like a greedy little child, the more I experience, the more I want to experience...but that's not the ambitions of those around me.

I come back from my jaunts and it is the same stories, the same relationships, the same spats, the same jokes. There is a comfort there for me, but tonight a good friend of mine saw this same circle of friends through my eyes, and it pained me for her to do so. She'll never see them the same.

I've mentioned on my blog here a good friend of mine, Nikki, several times before. She's a good girl… a medical student that has paid her way through college and saved enough for medical school by stripping when her Dad died of cancer as she was finishing high school. She's now in her second year and doing extremely well, but she's growing…she's starting to hang out with her med school class more and more. She has more in common with them. I understand this, but it has an interesting affect on our mutual friends. Just like I was never fully accepted into the core circle, she's been ostracized from it. She has stories that don't involve them…she has experiences that have nothing to do with their outlook on life. Now, like me…she's feeling the loneliness of what it means to leave one's friends behind and move forward by one's self.
Tonight Nikki and I talked…I sat and listened to her great stories of cram sessions, late night coffee runs, rounds in real hospitals. Hearing the excitement in her voice had me choked up like some PMS'ing chick watching a Hallmark commercial, but nobody else was interested…like me, she has outgrown our friends… and our dreams, our stories, our ambitions are no longer congruent with theirs. Their dreams are to go to the next big party…to spend the rest of their lives here in Raleigh. Big fish, small pond. That's not for me…and apparently not for Nikki either.

So here I sit writing this entry full from yet another slice of homemade pecan pie, my wife snoring beautifully curled up on the couch next to me… her feet in my lap. Nikki studying intently on the floor as she always does, with her books spread out before her in an organized chaos that I'll never comprehend. My heart is heavy tonight though because I know the pain that she feels…it is the same pain I felt the moment I returned from Australia two years ago this coming March. Once one grows it is impossible to go back. I felt it when she thanked and hugged me and my wife earlier…I see it even now as she ignores her roommate calling to tell her that she was able to hook up with some guy she met last night.

It leads me to ask the question… does knowledge and wisdom inevitably mean solitude?"