one of the questions that come up sometimes in the graduate dining hall is: if you weren't doing this, what would you be doing? and many people have an alternate career they could be pursuing. (mine, of course, is taitai-hood. duh. i can be the new-money kind of tai-tai with lots of fervent causes, and build libraries and donate to independent bookshops and julian can teach me to play bridge) but the more people i meet here the more i realise that people are multi-talented - and that is a remarkable thing, they are so intelligent and talented and sparkly and could easily have done other things, and done it well, and have been happy, that i sometimes think vocation is an illusion, whereas passion is real and choice is too. only once we get hold of the idea of vocation we do not let go of it. we like it. i like it, come to that. of course we do, it makes us feel elect, and that aligns with the feeling we have, for instance, in singapore, in the humanities, that we are unlike the rest, and that we're doing something difficult and underappreciated and misunderstood. that's half of it. the other half is that we identify with the description of passion so overwhelming it seems like there is nothing else we would do.

i don't think most people get through school by saying, but if i don't do this there's nothing else i'll be happy doing, or that this is the only there's nothing else, otherwise that is a kind of choicelessness too. in love we don't say, if you can imagine being in love with anyone else or being married to anyone else, don't marry this man. we fairly acknowledge that there isn't just one perfect soulmate, that there are lots of people we could love, and so choosing and committing oneself, rather than destiny, is what matters? there's nothing particularly special about marrying one's childhood sweetheart, as if it's something destiny picked out for us.

a lot of people i know have made successes of careers before coming to grad school; some people leave and make successes of other careers. they are the ones who are in place in either world. some of us aren't. i'm not. the nohrnberg calls it being one-legged. that is, it isn't simply that we're the only ones who are able to do this, but we also aren't able to do anything else. (me to von: but if i had gone and been a nurse i would have been at least useful to society, bandaging people and putting in ivs. von: but you would be terrible at that. you can't even draw a straight line.) and there is nothing wrong with that either, but it needs to be recognised as a limitation, not a badge of election. in either case, the ones who are one-legged and the ones who aren't - must rid themselves of the fantasy of vocation, election, secular priesthood, whatever - they must choose, and choose anew each day.

because we must be open to the fact that there are other things we can do and be - not equally happy - nothing is "equal" - but be happy, if in a different way. we know about the trousers of time. despite everything i wake up many mornings and think this is my world - this is where i belong - and one must feel this to live - one needs passion - otherwise it's only because we have arrived at the highest level of our competence. at the same time - any kind of routinisation of happiness is itself harmful - because we can easily think we still want what we no longer do -

and that means choosing, with your eyes open. we are polutropos - and each day we must reaffirm the choice, not the destiny.