Today I woke up and decided I didn’t want to go to school. I got coffee and a croissant and drove to the Worcester library. It was too cold to get out of the car; plus the chairs that they have in that library are really uncomfortable and uninviting. I turned the engine off, put on this jazz and read for about 3 hours. I finished On the Road. Every half hour or so, my car thinks it’s doing me a favor by shutting off the accessory power, which disengages the tape deck and startled me every time.
I was parked in the sun. The wind was howling and rocking my car and every car in the lot. I was waiting for the flag to get ripped off the pole. The trains went by, everyone went by, and it was weird to just be sitting there.
Today was one of the best days in a long time. I did something that makes me happy- namely, nothing. I sat down and read a book and didn’t think about anything for three hours except Dean and Sal.
I think I want to quit college. Well, I know I want to quit college, but I think I’m serious about it. I don’t know why I’m there. I want to work 9-5 and have a small apartment and a cat and a record player and a lot of books and a refrigerator full of orange sherbet. I could have all of this right now. Why am I wasting my time and money working towards a goal that isn’t even really there? I’d be lying to myself if I said I thought I had a future doing anything that I’m studying.
Do you think we’ve all just been pressured to believe that we need to go to college to be happy in life? How important is it, really, to get a degree? The sooner I figure this out, the better, because it’s an expensive thing to be in doubt about.