Don’t you love when a gripping novel begins to build momentum and accelerates into “downhill reading”? You know, the part where you start becoming attached to characters, lost in the setting, and invested in the plot. The book practically reads itself. I find the best authors to lace tension in a “calm before the storm” where I know something is going to happen but have no idea what it is. And then it strikes—literary climax—for which everything before was foreplay; it becomes clear that all dialogue, narration, and details serve the purpose of shedding context and raising the shock value of this one moment.
But after any good book is the unsettling return from the fictional world to reality. Like the nausea felt even hours after a boat ride, the inertia of the story’s forward progress leaves a lingering sensation of motion. Likewise, at the end of any movie, meal, or relationship, I wake up hungover and restless with withdrawal. And as college comes to a close, I’m anticipating the sobering crash from the high of the undergrad experience in Manhattan. For me, college has always been like a glitch in a videogame, where I enjoy the independence of an adult but the luxuries of a child. After four years of our prime in this super-charged city, I imagine the jarring adjustment to rigid worklife will inevitably leave me coasting on autopilot.
So is that it? Is everything here on out just a slow parachute descent from the glory days of campus? Guided only by the corny metaphors of my mind, perhaps the only way to stay fresh, despite changing lifestyles, is to just maintain the impulsive, idealistic, self-indulgent, stupid, and perhaps drunk qualities of 21. My periods of greatest growth have been results of risky decisions where I made myself really vulnerable to failure. In the way a strong break jumpstarts a billiards game with optimal angles… or a lengthy first word opens up a Scrabble board for the highest scores. At the end of the day we all need something, for better or for worse, to really rattle and stretch us outside of our comfort zones. Be it a job or your spouse, it should touch a raw nerve. Get your blood boiling. By pursuing girls out of my league, taking classes beyond my intellect, or even just lifting weights that are too heavy, I can avoid droughts of complacency and keep my pace.
