George Bailey Syndrome.
Posted on 15 May 2008
You imagine an adult life of consequence and meaning, marked by tangible results that bear your name and provide you status and permanence… or in the word’s of George Bailey: to build skyscrapers a hundred stories high and bridges a mile long. But then you wake up, pre-midlife, working in the humanities, teaching, writing, software, at the church, doing music; the sorta stuff that can’t be touched or quantified and whose impact is definitively subjective or spiritual. This is my syndrome.
If my children follow me into the realms of church or art I will weep. And then, I hope, muster the courage to support them above and beyond the parental call, knowing that they will be fortunate to experience flashes of brilliant purpose, amongst long months of mundane and meaningless striving.
Some days I wish I was an architect.
Anonymous
9 Jun 2008 (19:15)
Can you imagine parking on a hill above the city with the first sky scraper you designed? It makes being Bono seem humble to my imagination.