What Shall I Do?

I've hijacked Terry's PowerBook for a few minutes (he knows -- he just whispered "what are you doing?" and I told him "posting to my blog"). This is one of the best attended Wanderers meetings ever. We've convened to discuss purpose, life mission, what shall I do?

Art Kohn is the center of attention. He's at a crossroads: age 48, skilled in psychology, video editing, Africa (Zimbabwe especially), former Fulbright scholar, recently engaged. The guy is brilliant. Too bad he's probably moving to Washington, DC, but hey, Portland is willing to share talent. He's wondering what to do next. He wants to work with "big dogs."

At this moment, we're going around the table, discussing what big decisions we've made, what's been meaningful in our lives. When it was my turn, I talked about the big choice I had at Princeton: whether to go into International Relations (travel, women, wine and cheese) or Philosophy (darkness, madness, despair, dread). I chose the darkness (everyone laughed -- I admit to being funny).

We have some newcomers tonight and people are meeting strangers for the first time -- valuable in this context. I'm pleased to be here, seeing Wanderers in action. And seriously, the Philosophy path wasn't so bad, even has some of the same perks if you stick with it.

Also, speaking of video editing: good segment on open source on CBS News this evening.

Update: it's tomorrow already. I stayed up late and added lynx after midnight.