To make a choice a hundred times in your head doesn’t make up one in reality. To think you know what you want and to take it are on opposite sides of the river–the Rubicon. The die is cast. You can’t unroll it but you can maybe roll again.

Can you have everything that you want? And if its offered to you, do you take it? The Resistance, fuck it. The taboo, fuck that even harder. Fortune favors the bold. And so does failure. The strategy paradox. To strike too early is almost unrecoverable. To strike too late…it’s a little bit harder to judge when you’re ahead of the curve.

I think you can guess the decision now. The offer came. To Do or To Be. I have the opportunity now to leave school and live in the real world. An actual job, legit money, a pass to the front of a six year line. And of course I have been driving myself insane over the decision.

Negotiate while advancing. Trade space for time. Contradiction consumes me. I’m trying to make the choice the right way–no money, no superficials. These will come no matter what. But is the choice right? That is the variable. Maxims, axioms and one-liners. God protects fools. Who wants to be a fool? But they don’t mean anything. They don’t help you, alone and pacing,…

I told myself that I would when the time came, it wouldn’t even be a debate. School was just a means to an end. I’m sure many of you have told yourself the same thing. Or–even without knowing the details–think that you could come to a conclusion in a second. Trust me, it’s a bit more difficult. Yes, these are good, GREAT, problems. That only makes them easier after the fact.

It’s a hundred and seven. I am pacing outside in jeans. Sweat it out. Sweat it out. Fortieth play of the same song. Pull the trigger. Buck fever. This should be easy. Where am I happy? Never let school get in the way of your education. I started college on that note, I can’t finish on anything else. I think its time. Logistics, they’ll sort themselves out. Ok. I’ll keep that in mind. Exhale. Prepare for the pendulum swing.

I have cleared the table of distractions. The first thing I did was look up the Sunk-Cost Fallacy and get rid of that bias. You can’t let a month’s rent influence you here, or time served dictate time to be served. One of my stories tipped on StumbleUpon and I’m enjoying the rush. What do I like? What do I dread? Which gives me the most of one and the least of the other?

A degree? Or a stair below the seat of knowledge? Its not about school, but about time. Where will I get the most of it? Punch it now.

I told myself I was different. But to cement that difference for the rest of your life is again, a very scary thing. Do you want to be the kid who went but didn’t graduate? Do not mistake reflection for weakness. Or second guessing for a lack of commitment. The decision has already been made, I just haven’t discovered it yet. Blink. I knew before I will. And though I know now, I just don’t know. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Can’t let myself get deluded. Refuse to let any of it go to my head. These offers say more about them than they do about me. The risk for them is probably greater then me quitting school. I can always recover from the wrong choice; this a reassurance, not a cop-out. Am I crazy? Probably, but it’s served me well so far.

I think I know what I want to do. I think it will surprise everyone. But I’m putting in all the calls and hearing all the input I can.

-NYT: Running an Empire? No Sweat

(Not sure how I feel about the guy. I think I like the idea that he has his job and then he has his life, he does not define himself through the former.)

–Chris Napolitano on George Bush, the State of Porn, and Why Playboy is Still Hot –

(Real PR is just being honest and knowing your space. If you can prove that you believe in what you do, chances are other people will to)

–Meditations on Meaning: She Said Thank You

(About work and dedication and getting it done.)

–Wikipedia: Malthusian Trap

–Wikipedia: Demographic Transition

–Wikipedia: Demographic-Economic Paradox

(Just got turned on to this stuff and am finding it really fascinating. Had to print them out to understand them though.)

–SNL: Centaur Interview

(Quality stuff can go viral at anytime, it doesn’t expire)

“Power rarely ends up in the hands of those who start a revolution, or even those who further it; power sticks to those who bring it to a conclusion.”

–Robert Greene

I think I am going to tack this up above my desk. Ken Robinson broke down the world situation in a profoundly illustrative way for me in his book. If we were to set up all of time on a clock, with each minute as roughly fifty years, you can start to appreciate where we are today in a “real” way. The internet is less than 15 seconds old. The car is less than 3 minutes old. Literally, less than 90 seconds ago people were living in America were living in dirt houses and sharing pants. Walker Evans didn’t just make that stuff up.

Getting there first is important of course, but it really only matters if you Get Things Done. All this idiot talk about how Mahalo is going to defeat Google, or that the iPhone will change the world is just that, idiot talk. None of it matters, none of it means anything. We weren’t really designed evolutionary to comprehend time in that way. That’s the whole problem with predictions, they don’t make much sense to us either. Raynor had a good example: If you predict that there is a 75% chance of rain tomorrow and it rains, that doesn’t mean you were right. There could have actually been a 99% chance, or a 1%.

This whole internet thing–though it has forever changed our lives–hasn’t changed everyone. It’s just getting started. Don’t fall prey to thinking that power today is fungible tomorrow or that a legacy just a few years down the road is anything more than whispers and memories. So there are three courses, as Robert outlines: to start, to prolong, to conclude. You can accept this or set yourself up for a fall. It seems to me that in this revolution, we are at the transition between the first and second step. The interim-men in history never win–they have a good time, the made some money but they do not win. Simply by nature of the cycle you destined to be replaced. Knowing this, why set yourself up for transience, when permanence could be yours?