When I was five years old I had a “thing” for orcas. I had stuffed animals, figurines, and even a
couple books. When people would ask what
I wanted to be when I grew up, I would promptly announce, “A marine biologist.” At age 5. Yeah, I was a weird kid.
Well, I stubbornly clung on to that idea until sophomore
year when I got into my first biology class and realized I didn’t speak that
language. I wandered about for a while
in a confused daze. What would I do with
my life? What would I become? It was every adult’s first question, “What do
you want to be when you grow up?” I
could no longer answer the fundamental conversation starter and it bothered me
deeply.
Of course, that’s when I started a creative writing club
with my friend Robyn. I had always been good at English and I’d been working on
a ‘novel’ since fourth grade. Naturally, I had to keep updating it due to my
rapid change in writing style so it hadn’t gotten very far yet, but I still I
had a passion. I would be a novelist.
Writing is the ultimate Dionysian practice, full of feeling,
wild unabated passion, in the hope of intoxicating another with words if only
for a moment. More than anything I loved
being word drunk and I wanted to give that to someone else.
As a senior I found another passion, enough to match the
ecstasy of pouring one’s soul onto the page.
Its name was Calculus. I was blown away by the simple complexity of numbers
and variables sprawled out in such a movable order. It was so much like writing in the way you
could describe a way of life through a few, well thought out sentences. How
clever! I thought, How incredibly
clever.
Calculus, as well as my CAD and AutoTech classes, convinced
me to change my mind once again. I would
be an engineer, a mechanical engineer.
Apollo smiled on me that day.
Mechanical engineering was the logical, rational decision. I was almost assured financial stability, and
the market for engineers was good. How
very sensible.
So why does my heart yearn for Dionysus?
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