Throwback: Between Ahab and the Whale

Written almost 2 years to the day (January 2, 2016).
Thoughts: Interestingly, I got out of law school.

I hate narcissism and navel gazing, I do. I also am obsessed with myself - my thoughts, my feelings, and all about how I'm the center of my own universe. 

The above sentence is the crux of what I want to talk about, to be honest.

Are you an extrovert or an introvert?

Are you shy or outgoing?

Are you conventional or a non conformist?

Well? Do you like parties or not?

Intellectual? Fluff pieces only? 

Cat or dog person?

Likes guys or likes girls?

Believe in love? Or do you not? 

Want to be a mother? Hate the idea of kids?

Are you comfortable in your body? Do you want to be a hot size zero who could wear anything without having to think twice about it?

Are you a principled social justice warrior who watches her every word and action just so she can add her little bit to righting the world? 

Or are you a soulless sociopath fully capable of murder and everything in the spectrum leading up to it?

Yes.

Yes which?

Yes. Both. It's true, don't look at me like that. 

It's the WORST, okay. I envy people who know their minds, who know themselves, who have no duality to contend with within themselves. People whose battles are all fought on the outside. 

And sometimes picking a side becomes ALL IMPORTANT, because of the nature of the question. Here are two I've faced a lot in the last few years:

1. Do you want to be in law school?
2. Do you want to live?

I've had answers to both questions ready for a long time. At least on the surface, I've picked a side. Yes, and yes. I want to be in law school, and I want to live. 

I dare not admit to the existence of the other side of the coin, because I know what will follow. Because I can sense them probing for weaknesses in my story, just waiting to swoop in and forcibly carry me off, away from everything I've worked so hard for. 

No, and no. 

I don't want to be in law school.

I don't want to live.

What people seem to get the least is that the other side of the coin isn't anything to worry about, simply because it's the other side. I won't ever kill myself because I want to live just as much as I want to not live. I won't ever quit law school because the raw, steaming desire to get through this is just as strong as the ice cold fingers at my throat, trying to force me to give up and leave. 

The real reason why this sucks tonight is that I want to stay awake as much as I want to sleep, and because you always have to pick a side regardless. So while red hot desire wins in the long term, icy strangulation is winning the short term battles - the ones fought on a nightly basis. Which puts me right in the middle of a vicious whirlpool from hell: I can't get out of law school neither one way nor the other.