20 January 1999

Wow, a year!
I'm a lot less stressed this time.
Not that that's a good thing.

Does contentedness equal happiness?  I don't know.  I *do* know that
life, easy, slips on by.  The only challenges in my life are tiny
foothills.  Graduate school classes?  Ha!  For someone as un-dedicated
to computers as I am, I'm sure getting a lot of positive feedback.

Is it true that in life all we have to do is put forth effort to get
rewarded?  What happened to heart?  To obsession?  To passion?  I have
found, this past year, that all it takes for me to stay thin, to get
A's, to get money, to release a CD... is effort.  No thought, no
blood, not even luck...  Just sweat.  A depressing discovery.

And I see other people putting forth even less effort and getting by
just as well as I am.  So it's not just Travis who is coasting down
the hill.  There's a whole pack of us.  Maybe EVERYBODY feels like
that.  They boot up the game, fly through the first couple of levels,
and then go, "Hmmm, is that all?  I thought it would be tougher."

The freedom that we Americans have, the options, and especially those
of us computer programmers...

I was struck a couple nights ago, not by a car or by a bully or by a
girlfriend, but by a thought, an image.  It was dark and cld, around
11 o'clock at night.  It was Sunday night, and the sky was black.  I
had just come home from a dinner and a movie (to which I had to drag
myself, a sure sign of a "tough life" right there)...

Pitch black sky and cold, cloudless air with a slight breeze.  I got
out of my car and was walking across my parking lot (at Graduate
Court).  Up on the hill I saw houses lit from below, with tiny white
lights and I could hear voices, laughing but not raucous.
Directionless, although I could see figures walking on the street
under the lamplight.  

I was struct by how European the scene was.  How exotic, how
storybook.  How adult.  It reminded me of how I picture ski-resorts,
quiet European villages.  The hill, the lights, the cold, the pure
black sky...  It was a very picturesque moment.

Walking into my courtyard I looked up at a huge tree.  I couldn't see
the tops of it; its branches disappeared up into the darkness.  As I
walked, I looked at the archways and railings that surrounded the
courtyard, and at the clean sidewalk and walls and grass.  

"Wow, what a neat place to live," I thought to myself.  I pictured
inviting one of my girlfriends from long ago over to see it, so that I
could witness and share her appreciation.  For I've found that I tend
to be underappreciative of my surroundings.  Perhaps we all are.

Warmed by the courtyard and my own reflective state, and anticipating
further perceptive wonders upon reaching my suite, I made a point of
maintaining my pace so as not to spoil the rhythm and inertia of the
moment.  With only a tatter of self-consciousness, no cynicism but
rather a small anticipatory sadness at the inevitable loss of my
outward-focused mood, I started up the stairs to my apartment.

As I began to climb, I noted the wood of the steps, the...

And then in mid-observation I froze.  I didn't know why, I just
froze.  It took a second or two to realize I was looking at a bird.
An owl.  It was perched on the wooden railing, its body facing the
courtyard but its head swiveled around and calmly regarding me.

After a few seconds, it rotated its head back around to face the
courtyard.  I nervously spoke to it, asking it not to stare at me
any more, and it looked at me again, and then got bored and resumed
its view of the courtyard.

I crept past it, and ascended to my room.  I found my video camera,
checked its batteries, and then went back outside and down the steps.
The owl was still there, and I filmed it for a while, until it flew
off, either disturbed by me or after a mouse.

The magic moment was broke, then, and I soon entered my own familiar
Travis-obsessed, cynical world after that.  I called Miro to tell him
about the owl.  For some reason I had a desire to Document, to
Possess, to Bind the beauty of that night time walk.  To trap it and
then scrutinize it, tear it apart, devour it, consume it.

We as computer science people Have a lot now and are almost guaranteed
to Have a lot in the future, and we tend to be habitual consumers.

To experience new things, we almost always rely on technology:
television, cars and airplanes to take us on vacations, hotels, the
Internet, bicycles, skis, books and tents.  Hiking boots.

All that apparel...  Technology.  Tool.  Apparel.  It's tangible and
purchaseable.  It's mass-manufactured.  And it lacks uniqueness.

The cold night walk and owl experience was unique.  I cannot buy
another one.

And that simple fact makes me feel very good.

Travis