COLUMN: Remembering to Keep Things in Perspective

understand the relative significance of the different aspects of their lives and maintain self-loyalty. Now is the summer of our discontent. And it has to be. Go ahead, ask me how I know. We're now back at graduation. This is not my graduation; these are not my necessities being packed. They belong to my brother. I am only here for manpower -- an extra body to load boxes into our car, open eyes and strong hands to split the drive back home. I hear all the, "I'm looking for work in the x field" and, "I really want to be a y." Their voices waver, their eyes dart -- their lack of security a perfect accessory to their gowns and mortar boards. And these are some of the hardest working, most dedicated people on the planet. Where are they going now? The Gestapo of Life are marching all of them onto Franklin Field, and I am lucky enough to watch. I shouldn't have to sacrifice a summer in the name of a career. I shouldn't have to put myself against older, more qualified, and possibly more deserving people at this stage of my life. So I won't. I'll go my own route, work at my own pace and do what I love to do. Fuck misery. I won't commercialize. But I'm still rapt by the immensity of the whole thing. Flashback with me a few days to the Monday before graduation. I'm on the nine-train headed uptown in New York City. I need a place to live this summer because only a few days ago I was told I have an internship with a newspaper in Greenwich Village. This gig doesn't pay, and I'm halfway up to Harlem thinking, "what am I doing here?" I gather I'm on my way across some threshold when the nine-train seems like a pleasant place compared to the outside. Forty minutes amidst people who just don't care, and now I'm alone at 116 and Broadway. I know -- it's worse than this somewhere. This city is only big when you think about it, and when you're there alone, all you can do is think about it. And I'm still thinking, maybe to ignore the heat, about places like the South Bronx, Brownsville, or Queensbridge -- and those names: Bernhard Goetz and John Starks, Eleanor Bumpers and Colin Ferguson. I've just signed the lease at Columbia University, and I can't believe that I'd look too out of place if I were to grab the next person I see and ask them why I'm doing this. It's the thing we do. It's the God we pray to at night and the Devil that calms us when we wake up. It's the man that we pawn our soul to now so we can buy it back later. It's all the zeros at the end of our paycheck. It is, if nothing else, a sense of serenity. But sometimes it isn't. It can be a polar opposite. It is the dues we pay now to not pay them later. Hate now and love later: your punched ticket to contentment. Nine-train downtown. I swear to God, walking down Lafayette in the Village I see Harold from "Kids." ("Wassup, Harold!" I yell, and he is kind enough to mutter something before he grabs his skateboard and crosses to the other side of the street. Maybe I can fit in here.) Uncertainty and loneliness are no longer an issue -- it's too damn hot. Hope the office is air conditioned. It is, Allah be praised, but now what? The paper's office is like a mausoleum. "Steal this paper!" everything says, but maybe it ought to read "Fuck misery! We won't commercialize!" I'm telling you, the place was dead like yesterday. Then again, I did come by unannounced. (They weren't finished making all of their preparations for my arrival.) But I just wanted to get a lay of the land -- Lewis and Clark my way from Morningside Heights to the Village and then put my feet in the water. You all know what it's like going into something blind, and I couldn't let myself -- out of dignity and fear -- be thrown to the lions without at least a shield. My boss has to be someplace in a few minutes, so it's in and out. I spend more time waiting to get in than I do in the actual offices. I get to see what her cubicle looked like, whatever that's worth. I know where I'm going. I know where I'm living. I hope and pray I know what I'm doing. So now, Why? Here it is. Let's jump ahead two months: it's before twilight, and I'm sitting in Washington Square Park, having a snack before I head out for the evening with some friends. I'm wearing my Bulls jersey (no fear of retribution) and now that the sun is on its way down, the heat has started to dissipate. A lot of people in this park, billions more around it. A few I recognize, the rest I'll probably never see again. The day was long -- I had a lot of busy work to do, and more for tomorrow. But I'll meet my crew soon, perhaps see a picture, perhaps get kinda drunk. Whatever. I'll work hard tomorrow, this work will be useful down the road, and I'll imagine what sort of rewards this one summer will bring. But still, all summer, I've refused to let this take over. I haven't forgotten that I'm a kid. But before I fantasize, I wonder why, even if I love everything about this, I'm clawing and slaving and not sleeping just for a scrap of work no one else wants to do. I love this, remember? And I'll feel like hell, because I won't have an answer. But it will save me, knowing that I can ask that question.

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