i was still in middle school, maybe seventh grade, the moment i was hit with one truth: every dollar i have is a dollar someone else doesn�t have. and then i knew: i didn�t want to be rich.

as i got older, i realized something else: i didn�t want to help other people be rich, either.

so here i am in college now, not really understanding what my place is in life, only knowing what i don�t want to do: be rich, help other people be rich, help other people rape the environment or the soul of humanity, help bring about the evolution of disease-causing microscopic things that kill us against our best defenses. what else is there?

there is education. there is independent journalism. there is independent music. there is alternative medicine. there are jobs in small, forward-thinking businesses with no aspirations of being the next Starbucks, but aspirations are hard to measure. there is visual art, but i am not an artist. there is a life of travel, odd jobs, hostels, but one can only gain so much perspective from this, i suspect, before one longs for home and must find a more mundane existence. volunteer work doesn�t pay the bills. my path is, almost undoubtedly, something i haven�t even thought of yet. the mystery of this ought to excite the hell out of me, but instead, i�m just agitated.

whatever.