Interlude: Days Gone Bye

If I were to begin a post with a phrase like, "I don't want to get too philosophical here, but," then that would imply that philosophy is, to some degree, inappropriate or ill-fitted for this blog. That's not to say that it is, but my intentions here are to keep this an informative, entertaining, and educational read about my internship here at Williams Selyem, and not necessarily a diary. But a few things do come to mind that I would like to share in this forum.

For example: I don't want to get too philosophical here, but a thought occurred to me during Friday's BBQ that I would like to share. I had just poured myself a glass of wine, walked over to the railing at the edge of the patio, and was checking out the view. It was something like this, but was in reality far more grand and sweeping in scope:

Figure 1. A typical Russian River Valley scene. Just imagine

this as a panorama.

The view was stretched around me, the sun was setting behind me, there were 50 bottles of ultra premium wine open on a table and at my disposal, and I was surrounded by people with whom I work (even if only temporarily) at a job that we are all passionate about and love doing. Seems to good to be true, right? No shit. I was in a sort of cinematic daze. You know, that sort of transcendental state when you're both the main character and cameraman in your own life? As I stood there at the railing, glass of something great in hand, I took in the view from both first- and third-person.

That's when the thought occurred to me: it felt like the credits should be rolling.

If someone were to make a biopic out of the last two years of my life, that's exactly what would have happened at that BBQ. The credits would have rolled. Act One: I was miserable and unsuccessful in graduate school. Act Two: I decide to take my master's. Act Three: I move back home and take a year to collect myself. Act Four: I decide to stop looking for chemistry jobs and start looking for wine jobs. Act Five: I am offered and accept an internship at Williams Selyem, where I ultimately arrive and am very happy to work at. Credits roll. Okay, maybe the more appropriate close to that dramatization would be "curtain," but you get the idea. It's the end of the story, right? It had the classic fairy tale ending, didn't it? Unless my life ended at that BBQ, the answer is hells no. And if it did, I'm easily the cleanest, best smelling, most civilized zombie in undead lore.

Speaking of zombies, that brings me to the thrust of this post. In the introduction to the first collected edition of his excellent comic, The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman says:

"For me the worst part of every zombie movie is the end. I always want to know what happens next. Even when all the characters die at the end... I just want it to keep going. More often than not zombie movies feel like a slice of a person's life shown until whoever is in charge of the movie gets bored. So we get to know the character, they have an adventure and then, BOOM, as soon as things start getting good... those pesky credits start rolling."

We all know a good story that we feel this way about. A lot of people who read this blog feel that way about the Hitchhiker's Guide universe. (Although, the final book was apparently just released, allowing for some closure regarding the story.) Anyway, that's how I felt about my life in that moment, standing at the railing at the BBQ. I'm just a character (albeit, the central one) in my universe, and I have just finished an adventure. But! I have begun a new adventure. At some point, that one will end, too. Then I will begin a new one, and so on, until la Commedia è finita. That's what I presume, at least.

The point is, the best is yet to come. The introduction has closed, and the real adventure is beginning. Bilbo has returned home a rich little hobbit, but his adoptive nephew Frodo is about to embark on an even more fantastic journey. At the risk of sounding too devoutly Campbellian, I'll put it this way. We don't compare our lives to those of the Heroes; we are the Heroes. My journey just happens to wind its way through some vineyards. Where does it go from here? Who can say? I've got a pocket full of free will, sure, but I'm also just walking the mythic road. And I'll continue to, until those credits roll.