At last free

I will never forget the feeling I had 3 days ago, when I left the research lab I was working at, for 6 months. I felt tremendously light to have stopped carrying a burden in the past year.  A colleague of mine who also became a friend, listened to my story one day, following my complaint about why people in this lab, talk about technical issues even at lunch. Topics like how much the packet loss, bit rate and ping from their iPhone or home ADSL remote connection to office network was, or talking incessantly on technical papers. This was beyond my imagination to talk about these issues at lunch break and when I asked few of them: “where did you go for music festival last night?”, the answers were : “I was working from home”, “ which festival?”, “I was watching TV” , “I’m not interested in music”!

I tried asking the similar questions on films and current events to start a conversation but most of the times it was in vain. So unlike the conversations I had with my friends and colleagues in Iran and Lebanon, on current events, politics, music, films and books, which made our time fruitful and interesting everyday at lunch, at this research lab, I just went to have my lunch as fast as possible to come back to work. In Iran and Lebanon, lunch times sometimes turned into heated conversations but we all enjoyed it, cuz we were exchanging ideas, discussed our stance and sometimes realized that our stance needed to be changed.

So that colleague of mine told me that these people have passion for what they do, so they don’t look at it from your perspective. I said: “I know they have passion, it’s just that I don’t understand this passion. I’m alien to it. Look at yourself, you are also passionate about your research but you have interests like psychology. We talked several times on Jungian and Freudian experiments. I’m just saying how can people be so directional? That I don’t understand. Perhaps they ask the opposite question from themselves about me.”

He said: “you have to have a goal in your life. Do what makes you feel good. If this doesn’t interest you, you should change and the sooner, the better. It’s like keeping a stock in the hope of getting increased value but it just doesn’t grow, at best, it stays there or drops a great deal. It’s lost then. That’s your life.”

The way he put it, was truly meaningful and real. Suddenly many similar things came to my mind; an unforgettable moment in “Papillon” when he dreamed of being judged:

“Your crime is the most terrible crime a human being can commit. I accuse you of a wasted life.” 

A verse in “modest mouse” song, “ocean breathes softly” was echoing in my head: “you wasted life, why wouldn’t you waste death”

And finally what a friend told me after his concert, while we were telling each other our stories: “ Follow your heart Acey”

…

Yes, I’m gonna follow my heart!