Consolidationist Paper #1
An Investigation of Nonindependence
Years have gone by. It has been more than three years since we crawled, walked and jumped from college into the real world. Here we are. Three years later.
Where are we? The shortest description of our location is On The Coasts. To state the obvious, our lives seem plotted on endlessly divergent paths.
College ended three years ago. It’s only a matter of months before one of us goes back to school, graduate school. We all know friends who are in grad school already. Grad school isn’t a death knell but it often brings on the passing of several punti di non ritorno.
- Lengthy financial debt coupled with determination to work to pay it off
- Geographical limitation for two or more years
- Large time investment — measured in portion of waking hours — followed by more time investment in more school or career
The reality is that any one of these points can singularly push us past the point of no return to the beyond and that’s it. You know the beyond…
- Commitment out of our control
- Supporting new family, laying old family to rest
- Really needing to get on to get by
- Losing grip of that spirito avventuroso
Point of no return — return to what, college? Friendship? Freedom? What is there to return to, to recreate? You may say. It saddens me to think that your imagination and mine lack the idea of what could await us in the consolidation. It’s ok, it’s hard to think about. Let’s think through it together.
A true Consolidationist doesn’t exist among us in flesh and bones. I encourage us to create the idea of one on paper. In the consolidationist papers, we can define what consolidation means, what its advantages are and how we might enjoy them.
And oy vey, if not now, when?
