heavy on
the screw, easy on the driver
(April
5, 2001)
It seems like
ages since y2k.
Life has
moved about quickly, and a lot has happened. Not only with the world,
but with me, too.
We've seen the dot-coms come and go, and I was there in the Valley
too, in the middle of the action, when programmers still rode limos
and went for afternoon boat trips on the Bay.
Y2k was a
funny year. It seemed like a year out of time, a year that belonged
neither to the last century nor to this one. To me, y2k was a year out
of a life and into a new one. Into a new life where nothing is taken
for granted anymore. And strangely as that may seem, that doesn't bring
uncertainty. In fact, it's au contraire.
Stability
is a good thing. But so is change. And confidence should stem less from
stability and more from your knowledge that whatever you have have done
before, you can do again. Trusting the boat is fine, but knowing how
to swim sure helps.
And last year,
I had to swim again. And once you remember how it's done, you wonder
whether you should ever go back to boating, you wonder why not stick
to the freedom of the backstroke, why go to sea on those fragile things
we call boats and jobs and marriages, why not just swim?
And there's
a short answer to that. Because swimming is fun for a short while, but
it doesn't really get you very far (except when you're that kind of
a guy that can swim across the English Channel, but those don't come
very often).
Jobs take
you places, marriages teach you things, things you learn by sticking
to something for long enough to learn them, for long enough to see them,
for long enough for them to happen. You can learn a lot from having
17 different women in the course of a year. But you can learn a lot
from living with the exact same person for a long time.
People learn,
and people change. If the person you are with doesn't learn, and doesn't
change, you might as well dump her, she's probably dead and you forgot
to notice.
Well,
sometimes people change for worse. It happens. Either wait or quit.
But most of the time it's not too bad, and you may find that you get
almost as much variety from sticking with the same person than from
moving around too quickly.
Same thing
with jobs. Things change. Your work changes, the people you work with,
the stuff you do and the tools you do it with. And all of the time you
learn something. And when you stop learning, it's time to move on.
A couple of
years ago, I suspected something was wrong with my life. I wasn't sure
if it was my marriage or my job. But then one quit me, and I quit the
other, and my life... my life didn't change, it just moved on.
Am I a happier
man? Yes, I think I am.
