be daring and passionate, to hell with the consequences

Yesterday, a couple frat boys carrying a 24-pack of Natural Light beer walked onto Caltrain and sat in the row behind me. I’m on this kick of “say yes to everything”, so I started a conversation with them. They gave me a beer, which I said yes to even though I’ve given up on trying to like beer. Natural Light turned out to be so bland, it didn’t make me think of dirty dishwater! Well, only a little.

They decided to walk through all the cars on the train and invited me to join them. So of course I said yes. The door to one car bumped my arm and I spilled a little beer on the pants of a dignified-looking fellow from India. We walked by one of my co-workers, who laughed. We were an odd combination: two loud frat boys and one Silicon Valley geek. We handed out beers to random folks, many of whom didn’t know that Caltrain allows eating and drinking, including alcohol. Some of them hid their beer behind a seat while the conductor stood talking 20’ ahead.

This wasn’t super-daring, and there were no consequences (unless the East Indian guy sends me a dry-cleaning bill), but it was fun and outside my usual limits.

I could get another contract job and stay in San Francisco another year. I could probably save up enough to put a 50% down payment on a house in Indiana, even after taxes and the outrageous living expenses of SF. I would enjoy my favorite city-long enough to actually meet people and make friends. I would get into the best financial shape of my life, and it would be enough that I’d be “over the hump”-not likely to be poor ever again. Working in software development has reminded me that I am especially good at this, and there is a mini-boom going on right now. I could write one of the books I’ve been wanting to write for years now.

Or I could go to Indiana for grad school this Fall. I would have very little money in the bank, I’d have to rent, and I’d be pinching pennies for the next five years. I wouldn’t have time to write any books.* But I’d dive right into a course on programming languages taught by a prof I met last week, which looks like stuff I’ve wanted to indulge myself in for years. He promised to “blow my mind every day for the first six weeks”.

I’m passionate about San Francisco. I’m passionate about flexing my computer programming muscle and earning some serious money. And I’m passionate about doing research in some combination of computers, mathematics, and cognitive science, which I’d get to do in Indiana.

It’s hard to sort this out.

Right at this moment, I think I’m feeling most passionate about diving into coursework and research. The consequence I’d ignore is having to pinch pennies for five years in my 40s.

I’ll likely get an interview or two for contract jobs within the next week. If the work is something I can get excited about, then I’ll take it and enjoy SF and the money. If not, then it’s off to grad school and poverty.

*Except maybe in the summer. Hmmm…