February 21st, 1973
Dear Diary,
I submitted an application for a job today. I barely paid any attention while filling out that resume form. It was boring. I don’t know what my life is meant to be, but it’s definitely not this. I still feel bad that I persuaded my parents to get me into Reed college. They told me it would’ve been more affordable for them to put me in a state school like Berkeley, where Woz went to study. But that’s not what I want to do. I don’t want to do that stupid engineering undergraduate nonsense. I know that I’m from a working-class family. And I know my parents emptied their bank accounts for this. But now that I’m here, I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. If I knew what I was going to do with my life, I would’ve gone to Stanford. But here I am, spending all my parents’ money. I was thinking about the day when I was wandering around campus and decided to sit in on this calligraphy class, and it really turned me on to calligraphy. It was so beautiful and elegant.
In high school, I used to spend time in the library reading King Lear by Shakespeare. Then in college, it was all about Buddhism, Spirituality, and Zen. My friends and I would have this little place where we just sit and meditate, sometimes trip on acid. Earlier in my life, I didn’t understand why people would take sketchy drugs, and now here I am, always tripping on acid and sometimes pot. Taking acid changed my life. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t try LSD at least once in their life. Those were nice days.
If I actually do get this job, or any other one, I’d like to travel to the east at least once in my life. Find a guru in India. I was reading “Be Here Now” by Baba Ram Dass again.
It would be cool to meet his guru in India. I might leave college soon. I’ve already dropped out a while back. I have nothing to do here as a drop-in student anyway. I heard that Reed college has an insane dropout rate anyway so it will probably be okay. You can tell who’s thinking about dropping out when they aimlessly sit in their window at night. I was sitting at my window listening to some Bob Dylan a few nights ago myself. I was with Dan. Dan thinks it’s weird that I don’t wear shoes. It’s not weird, it’s just what I like to do. I don’t even eat meat or butter like the rest of them. As I was listening to some of Dylan’s songs, I remembered the time when Woz and I collected over 100 hours of Dylan’s bootlegs. Dylan is such an inspiration to me, there’s just something about his songs.
Woz and I used to read his lyric brochures all the time earlier, staying up and interpreting lyrics. I wonder how he’s doing at Berkeley. I know he likes doing the stereotypical engineering stuff. We had a lot of fun back when we used to do the blue box and the shocking roulette game and whatnot. He knew he wanted to be a hardware guy from the start. I envy his childlike personality so much. Sometimes my friends tell me I act crazy, and well, fair enough. Woz knows what he wants to do with his life. I want that too. Maybe someday in the future.
About the Author: Arnav Inamdar is a first-year student at Manipal Institute of Technology.
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