25 March 2011

Daydreams in Houston on the 56th floor of some building

I was in a meeting today and started daydreaming. This is dangerous when it's an important event but I managed to get by. Sometimes I get a version of highway hypnosis in these things. 15 minutes go by and I don't recall much of anything that was said. After a few decades in my field, the dialogue tends to all run together and it is rare to hear something memorable or unique.

Anyway, while daydreaming I had this thought about how my daylife is so different from my home life. I find myself in settings during work that are completely removed from my real life. I talk about things that I am truly interested in, and passionate about, but that would never come up at home. Debt covenants, liquidity traps and portfolio optimization just aren't topics of kitchen conversation where I come from. I guess it's that way in every field. There is the language of trade and commerce and there is the language of hearth and home. I find myself seeing things and being in places that remind me of the old Talking Heads tune Once in a Lifetime, since every line applies to some part of my life.

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here?

Another thought I had was the number of people I meet in my career who are really important to me in the moment, in the current hour. Then they vanish. Or I vanish. I'll run into them 7 years, 2 months and 13 days from now and what we did on this day will be idle chit chat. "Well how is that deal going?, has it been seven years, seems like just yesterday, time flies, hows the weather, blah, blah, blah. "

Perhaps I'll wake up soon and find I'm late for my paper route and forgot to study for an Algebra test.

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