Rube Goldberg

I was supposed to leave for Carmel at two, but the Nintendo emulator I just downloaded has kept me distracted. I have five levels of Kung Fu to play, and they won't beat themselves.

It was three-thirty before I saw a clock again, and If I'd left then I would have hit rush-hour traffic on 465. Indianapolis is a meager traffic town compared to what I've seen in Chicago and New York, but still, if I can avoid it, why not?

Most of my days involve planning like this. Set the alarm for seven, wake up at eight, study till nine, shower and breakfast till ten, walk to class and in the door by ten-twenty. Since I have no job, anything after class ends does not require structure, and I fill the time with emulators, books, and the occasional hard run.

But there are bigger things than just my days. There's the coordination of my future at stake, and in my mind it's all a giant Rube Goldberg machine. Rube Goldberg machines, for those that don't know, are those really complex devices that cartoon characters build to scramble eggs, or pour pancakes, or flip a light-switch. If there is anything out of place, the objective isn't achieved. The candle has to burst just under the balloon, the brick has to land right on the catapult, the parachute must carry the scissors right across the fishing line. And if everything works, your shoes get tied.

My objective is the Peace Corps. Specifically, my objective during these last few months in the United States, is to ensure that I am actually leaving for Africa. To do this I've had to schedule doctor appointments, get blood work, have cavities filled, obtain an eyeglass prescription, send in reimbursement forms. On top of that I have to finally get my diploma, a task which has brought me to IU, taking two French classes, in which I can get no lower than a C (B- right now in F200, we'll see what happens when the final's graded). When the second session finishes on August 10th, I'll have fourteen days to transfer my credits and get my diploma. This, of course, is assuming I'm definitely leaving, and I can't definitely leave until I get this stuff taken care of.

I was just on the verge of writing, "When did my life become like this? Hinting of serious responsibility?" I'm glad I didn't, because I hate questions like that. Another thing I don't like is when people say they need a vacation from their lives. I'm reading Steinbeck's The Log From the Sea of Cortez right now, and one thing he mentions before he and his shipmates cast off is that so many people stand on the dock with this look of envy in their eyes. They are saying, "My life is nothing but boredom, and I wish I were going with you." Steinbeck says that these people are fools, because a bored man is bored everywhere. If you feel victimized by your life, do not blame the circumstances, blame how you've reacted to them.

I understand that that's an easy thing for someone like me to say. I've not gone bankrupt, or had a drug problem, or grown up in a dysfunctional environment; but I've known people who have, and those kinds of people can be divided into two categories: those that blame the state of their lives on their problems, and those that leave their problems behind and take responsibility for themselves.

I won't give away any names, but two women I've dated have had undesirable childhoods. Absent, abusive, or unfaithful fathers, discrimination, poverty. You name it. All the ingredients for a best-selling memoir. I won't go into any details either, but each girl takes a different approach to the Rube Goldberg machines of their lives; one has modified a flawed design, while the other designs around the flaw.

I wrote in an earlier post about Ulysses that, thanks to language, every man is an artist. One could say that every man is also an inventor. Our lives rest upon a Lego-block foundation built in childhood. Sometimes the foundation is unsound, and it is up to the inventor to build his machine to accommodate those weaknesses. Some machines are simpler than others, and some never reach the main objective. Some build machines all their lives, hoping an objective will eventually be discovered. I feel like I'm building many small machines that will someday be connected. Years ago, the machine took me to Wyoming. Another machine made me fall in love. Now, I'm trying to get to Africa, and I feel like I'll be building this damn thing up to the day I leave. But I don't mind. I like to invent. It gives me something to fill the days.