i had the most informal session today, with talks of travelling the world to seal agreements, living the "high intellectual and governmental life" of meeting people, going places, charming my way to make a difference for a greater good. i did well i think, granted that i didn't have much time to rehearse my lines or organize my thoughts. but a part of me remains lucid and cynical of the fulfillment that a younger me might have envisaged. this opportunity in the horizon was after all, still a part of the mammoth system that sustains the city-state, with strings attached and glass ceilings thick as walls. the JD always sounds awesome, challenging and sexy - but reality is closer to the pendulum oscillating between boredom and hectic activity, with the sword of Damocles hanging over one's head, ready to set some heads rolling at the whim and fancy of some big shot in the system.
I dislike the system - how it has always streamed people at some early point in their lives, divided into gold, silver and iron by some Noble Myth which has ceased to be noble for a long time. the glass ceiling for the silver caste (who made it there through a longer and more arduous route) was solid as stone. yet the guardians of the system like to polish that ceiling, thinking that it makes it more transparent and less of an eyesore. but no, we silvers feel it rather acutely as we try to become more upwardly mobile.
I have to concede though, that the city state is too small to escape its clutches. every other opportunity that I hear (with remote Prospects) was linked to the system some way or another. I have increasingly lost patience with a regimented existence, but it costs too much to be an outcast of the system. financially, socially, emotionally. until.... i find that which motivates me beyond the fat paycheck, flexible hours and a comfortable obscure existence. I seek to find it, but the city-state might be too small to house it.