An audience of one
In my fridge right now there is a Nalgene full of vodka, next to the apples and Odwalla. In my purse a bag of cigars. On my desk an empty bottle of champagne that I finished off once.
These are things I would not have possessed last year. Wouldn’t have because I didn’t have any interest in, had some strange moral opposition towards, had an irrational fear of, didn’t understand, was naive towards. And now it’s all dissolved into a kind of eager acceptance of all these objects that, until relatively recently, were foreign to me.
When you find yourself changing (and morphing into something you didn’t really see coming), you’re forced to wonder where the line is between moral slippage and regular maturation. By letting go of some of the morals that defined you in the past, you’re allowing yourself developmental space to grow into someone new. And that wiggle room, that’s important. Because without it, you’ll be stymied by the standards of your past and paralyzed by former selves. You’ve got to adapt and try new things and all that.
But is this drastic stuff the result of peer pressure or is this character change and refining propelled instead by curiosity and genuine interest in trying new things? I’d argue that it’s the latter, because if it was the former, you’d see more people trying to fit back into their previous molds. You’re supposed to change. People do it at different rates. And it’s absolutely a lovely thing to see the before and after and realize that the after is a real nice place to be. Life is a fluid thing.
On a mildly related note: my friend’s parents from home are in town and took my out to dinner. The father had me try a bite of his alligator soup. This, like lots of other things, is something I would have kindly refused a year ago. But. I tried it. And now I know for certain. It’s gross.
On a less related note: today Bill Dreyton, the CEO of Ashoka came to speak. Our team met with him for a private time before the larger lecture. And he said something I thought was pretty nice. He said the future is with changemakers and not with the dinosaurs.
