goodness
man! when I was little, I *so* wanted to grow up! I wasn't sure I wanted to be a grownup, in fact I was pretty sure I didn't want to be a grownup. that looked like about as much unfun as there was to be had! but I definitely didn't want to be a lil kid any more! I was tired of goodness! dead tired of goodness! goodness was what I escaped from into my dreams, into my stories (Greek gods and heroes, never Roman), into my playing out past my back yard, out past the town, out into the real world! dear god, yes, please! funny, I would pray to escape god! I looked forward to boarding a sailing ship (like pirates did, or marines!), to scaling a castle wall, to fighting in the streets of a burning city! as well as I knew, that was the part of a life that was worth living before one was doomed to be a grownup and do nothing that anyone enjoyed for the rest of one's life, to never ever have fun again, to be chained to an eternal stone of good deeds. jesus! what makes grownups communicate that life is like that to a kid? anyway, somehow I survived. I never did fight in the streets of a burning city, scale the walls of a castle, or board a sailing ship, but goddam! I got to program computers when most folks didn't even know what a computer was! I got to help fly robots to planets, when most folks thought that was just science fiction! I got to help convert signals detected by sensor arrays into astronomical pictures of more galaxies than we had ever imagined the universe held! then when I blew that career, I got to try free-lance programming for a while, then to program and manage databases, and even manage UNIX servers for an insurance company! I didn't buckle any swashes, but damn, I un-riddled some puzzles! and as well as I can tell, goodness had nothing to do with anything I did after I left home. I don't mean I was an evil person - I'm not rich! but none of my decisions hinged on doing good. having fun, yes; doing good, no. maybe what I really appreciate is ungoodness.
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