My mother purchased for me The Proud Highway: Saga Of A Desperate Southern Gentleman, the first of three volumes of Hunter S. Thompson's collected corrispondence. It's invigorating my spirits, as is Mighty Oregon; giving me charged night-thoughts about how to live life real to the fullest once more. I go to sleep excited and wake up fatigued.

This is something to wrestle with, though. I caught myself the other night explaining to someone in most unconvincing tones how I wasn't ready to settle down. The dichotomy I've been subconsciously working with is adulthood/responsibility/career vs. childhood/irresponsibility/fun, but I'm starting to think that's a false choice I've constructed for myself, maybe something I absorbed from somewhere along the line this past year.

So I'm starting to re-think it all -- thinking critically, not shitically -- with an eye towards the Hegelian synthesis. Do I want to fold myself into a career path? No. But I do want to make something of my life, but it's my life, my life, and so I don't want to compromise. Should I manage to vest myself in that belief and carry it through, it's an even more ambitious and adventurous choice than springing for some career hook.

However, I'm nagged by lingering tendrils of doubt. Is this just a way to get out of doing work that I don't want to do? Is this just a way to sleep late and party more? I think not, but I don't know for sure just yet. How long can I wait for certitude? Uncertain. But I feel the wheels are in motion here, and that's a welcome sensation.