Destination unknown

On WNYC this morning, there was a story about a young Hasidic man who left his community about a year ago. It was evidently excerpted from this episode of a podcast on Vox Tablet, a magazine on contemporary Jewish life. Aside from the stranger-in-a-strange land bits, which were heartrending and at times, amusing, there was one quote from Luzer that struck me (speaking about himself in the third person):

[In Grand Central,] everyone seems to have a destination. At least it seems like they know where they’re going. And he has no idea. People taking the train, taking the subway, and he doesn’t know the difference between a train and a subway.

It reminded me of a conversation that I had yesterday with a friend of mine. I was saying that I didn’t really know what I wanted to do next, what my next evolution would be, and I was having a hard time with that. He said he found that surprising—our public personas dictate that everything is always fabulous with our careers—but refreshing, and he felt similarly.

Kai Wright once talked to me about the “myth of the trajectory.” We spend so much time on the up-up-up of building our careers, and what does it actually do for us? For me, I left working in the corporate world because I didn’t want to be in a rat race. But now I find myself in one a little bit anyways, albeit one with Good Intentions. I’m not sure this is the best use of my time.

So, a note back to Luzer: we’re all just kidding ourselves a little bit, acting like we know exactly where we’re going all the time.