As I came downstairs, it was like stepping into a cool pool of water, or at least air bathed in it. The difference was gradual, but the ends of the temperature gradient were palpable.

Yes, it's officially be summer in Houston, I thought to myself.

I woke up early this morning because the last two days have found me sick and out of action with either a stomach bug or a mild case of food poisoning. Nothing could be kept down (well, in), I lost my appetite (much to the joy of my diet), I was physically weak and unable to regulate my body temperature.

Unfortunately, that means I've missed a day and a half of work this week, so I got up so I can head in early. While I'm waiting for the dryer to fluff my black slacks, I'm sitting at Marilynn's computer pecking this out on the keyboard.

However, I have that feeling that I don't want to be there. Like I do many mornings, I have awakened with thoughts and ideas in my head. Designs of a system I want to be working on, rather than being a wage-slave to systems I don't care about.

I have become bored with the constant political battle of trying to manage our systems at work, where we're too afraid to upset an intern somewhere because we cut him off in the middle of an instant messaging session with his lover, or maybe force a reboot of machines that no one is using anyway, but doing so will cause a lot of calls to the helpdesk to ask, "why is my computer rebooting?"

I am sick of us changing our systems management style and buying new software at the drop of a hat to do some task that could be done with our existing systems just as well. I know what I will be doing today - babysitting three "consultants" who have come in to help us set up Altiris so we can run a pilot versus Microsoft's SMS to see if it does what we want, when most of what we want we can do with what we have already. In fact, these consultants are not taking the lead on this and being self-starters from what I could see. They are doing work that we could be doing. Why are we paying them, again?

I've grown weary of being tasked with goals and not being given time to complete them. From going to meetings and taking courses and having my directions changed on me a dozen times a week, I never get things that truly matter accomplished.

Management should be interested in what motivates their people, and what motivates me? Accomplishments and results. Let me build and create. However, giving me new tasks every couple days without giving me time to finish the old ones (or hope of ever doing so) demoralizes me after a while.

I'm just tired of it.

But I digress. As I said, this morning, as I do many mornings, I woke up with designs in my head. I woke up with purpose on my mind. I dreamt of a new system, a system of communication, recording thoughts and information and memories. I think of new, better ways to design it, interlink it with others' work, make a real contribution.

Every morning in the shower I think about this design. I get excited about my ideas and I extend them just a little bit, or reinforce the design in my mind. I think about how to make them come to fruition.

However, through the day I work and have it beaten from me. I sit down and try to write some Delphi code, and fix a problem here, and put out a fire there and answer a dozen questions. We eat lunch and we have political wrangling and the daily drama. Phone call meeting interuption another meeting ARGH! It never ends.

Finally, at the end of the day I leave work drained and tired. I come home, unwind, and lose myself in TV. Marilynn and I spend time together, and I decide to let my ambitions go for more time losing myself and recuperating for the next day.

I am afraid of losing myself for good. You know, losing what makes me... me.

Many times in my life I've been told I have a light inside... in fact, more than a light. I have a fire. A force that could move mountains, if only I could marshall it to a cause. My Achilles' Heel is that I minimize and hide this, squelch it. The thing is that, since this fire is a part of me, my soul dies a little every time I squelch it.

When I was very young, I silenced my creativity and intellectual life when I was made to feel that it hurt other people. When I learned that those who wanted me to believe that were doing it to make themselves feel better or hurt me, I did it again because I didn't believe in that fire anymore. Once I finally did believe in it again, it didn't matter anyway because then I didn't believe in my ability to harness it.

I am unsure if I believe in myself yet, but it seems almost socially unacceptable to let that fire burn now. It's not a safe course of action to take. I am past the age where one should be doing such things, because following one's passions is risky. You're supposed to be on a "career ladder" when you're 33. If I screw it up now, I could fall off that ladder forever.

However, I feel like the air up this ladder is filled with smoke and choking the life out of me. I want to create, damn it! I want to design, I want to build, I want to debug, I want to share with the world. I want to help change the world!

What is saddest of all is that I know deep down is that this is a simple elaboration on the human condition. Everyone wants to follow their passions, yet they cannot for circumstances. You can, if you do it at the right time. After a while, life gets complicated. In western society, we call that "adulthood."

Maybe I'm tired of being an "adult"? Maybe I just think that the rules shouldn't apply to me? Maybe I think those rules are ridiculous.

Nonetheless, I am merely a man-child wandering through life, never looking in the direction that all the other man-children are walking towards. I am swept along in the crowd currents by the movements of all the other man-children, following society's wishes, whatever those wishes are. I just know that often, they are not mine.

restlessmind