I wasn't the pimple-faced 13 year old engaged in a flame war on icq about which linux distro had the better package manager. I also wasn't the football player pushing this kid around in the hallway. I was somewhere in the invisible in-between, doing my part to avoid classification into one extreme or another. I wasn't really outgoing or charismatic, nor was I prone to hiding in the basement cruising BBSs for porn. Sure I played around on my Commodore 64, but I didn't do anything like start my own hardware consulting business before I turned 18. In short, I was kind of a nobody. However, I did test well when I was in school. Very well in fact, and I didn't have to study much, either.*That was me in the back of the class wearing all black and acting aloof yet getting straight A's. In many ways, I consider my test taking ability to be my strong suit. Not just in the school sense, but in all aspects of life. When I pay attention I can determine the relative importance of things with pretty decent accuracy. If I have some confidence that I will be "tested" on a certain subject matter, I'll retain the important points until the test. After that, of course, all bets are off. The problem with this is that, while it did make me a good learner, it didn't instill a passion for learning. I wasn't driven to learn everything about this subject or that, I was just waiting to get a hint from the teacher about what bits will be required for the test so I could focus my attention there. I was lazy, and it was working just fine for me. Having been out of school for about a decade now, the "teacher" in my scenario has become the accumulated perspectives of my boss and coworkers. My ongoing test has become to appear that I know my stuff, whatever my stuff needs to be at that time. I don't really need to know it, I just need to appear to know it.*Actually knowing it is helpful of course. Over the years, I have actually come to know quite a bit, in the real sense of the word, but I still find it hard to apply myself to actually pursue a more focused excellence in a specific field. I'm now trying to cultivate, or even germinate, a sense of passion in the field of web design and usability. Despite what this sounds like, I am quite happy doing web design stuff. I really enjoy it. I'm just missing that sense of "belonging". I'm troubled by my fear that I would feel that sense of belonging in a different line of work. Simultaneously, I fear that I won't feel that sense of belonging wherever I look. One of those no-win situation things, I guess. Fear is funny that way. Though this is one big aside, I'd like to clarify that I'm not a religious man. As such, I don't take direction from the origins of faith pertinent to such beliefs, though I do accept that faith, as an extension of your concept of reality (et al), is a driving force for everybody regardless of affiliation.*I'm pretty sure God didn't tell me to write that sentence. Yikes! Nonetheless, I'm not going there here. What it all comes down to is that sometimes I wish I were a zealot. I'm torn though. Without that feverish direction I feel that I can view more of the world, though the other camp could argue that there's beauty, even truth, in the details; that the closer you look, the more of the world you see. I suppose certain people look around by turning their heads and others by zooming in to what their already looking at. There's more to see either way you go about it. For myself, it just doesn't feel right to close my eyes to so much even though what I see may lack the zealot's clarity. But is the grass really greener for them? Would you give up the panorama for a microscope (or vice versa)?