I've shown you my friend Holy Jon before.

But here he is with his new post-Master's Degree facial hair, looking remarkably like Maynard G. Krebs from "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis".


                            


Looking at  the original Maynard G. Krebs, I can't help but wonder - is there something about skinny guys with facial hair that causes them to look unsatisfied with the current state of affairs...something that gives them the appearance of thinking that they know a better way of doing things? They always look sorta...revolutionary; as Caesar said about Cassius, they have "that lean and hungry look".

Although Jon's never hungry; in fact, nobody's ever seen him eat. Now that he has a Master's Degree in Computer Science, he'll be able to make even more money, and still not eat any of it.

And, since Jon got his Master's Degree in Computer Science from Arizona State University, he's also started missing a lot of our morning runs. I suspect that, like Maynard G. Krebs, he's decided to avoid work at any costs; he's been working full time while going to graduate school, and he's probably had all the fun that he can stand.¹

I went to graduate school - for a whole quarter.  And I decided that it wasn't for me; I reckon that, at the time, I had had enough of school. Now, here it is, seventeen years later, and I wish that I had gone ahead and gotten an advanced degree - by now, I would be Herr Doktor Professor Puckett, mit de scars on de face from Heidelberg, yet!...I would be pacing back and forth at the head of some Computer Science classroom, making big bucks for walking around and talking and acting arrogant and superior and making undergraduates feel inferior and insecure (that's good work, if you can get it)

Instead, I sit in a cube. Sometimes I talk out loud, but nobody listens.

Is it a midlife crisis if it never ends? : ) ...it occurred to me the other day that what my life is missing is a very simple, but powerful, ingredient - hope.

I went looking for a definition of "hope" just now, but didn't see any that expressed what I'm talking about - I heard the other day that "hope" is the belief that there are better things ahead.  But the definitions and discussions that I find when I google "hope" all seem to be SPECIFIC, and I"m not talking here about anythng specific.

When I first sobered up, some 8618 days ago, I had hope in truckloads, but it was completely unspecific - it was just a vague belief that God had something better planned for me, and all I had to do was ask Him for directions, and He would lead me there.

I find that now, all these many years later - after God has, indeed, led me to a much better life - I find that I have, in some ways, worn out my hope; it's not going to get any better now. In fact, when I view it from a self-centered perspective, having moved from Utah to Arizona set my life back in many ways; not only that, but that very move has left me not believing in my ability ask God for directions and get them.

So I find that I have a life that is comfortable, and not too difficult, and in many ways quite pleasant - but it is devoid of that single component - "hope" - that belief that things will get better. I no longer believe that things will get better; much like Jack Nicholson, I have to ask myself "What if this is as good as it gets?"

And, way down deep somewhere, I hear a scary, empty holler answer.

Maybe I'll trim my beard up in some wierd beatnik way. That might help :)






¹while running with me probably isn't "work" for a guy that skinny, it might remind him of work.