"Life presupposes perennial questions: What is its purpose? Is there a god? Does beauty exist only in the eye of the beholder? As Montaigne once pondered, “When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?” Concerning imponderables, questions such as these have never given me much pause. I’m far too young to know answers to the first three, and far too old to know them of the last. Don’t label me an ignoramus just yet though. Naturally I have my theories; a person without theories is a bore. For the sake of argument I could even say they’re objectively true, but I won’t, because I once read that “all our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last.” Time, apparently, is the enemy of absolutes, though I can’t absolutely say that. I once made a final decision, when I was five. I decided destruction was a form of creation and proceeded to smash my grandmother’s Limoge collection. I soon realized the contrary; that I couldn’t put the pieces back together like the Lego sets I was certain were waiting for me under Grandma’s Christmas tree that year. Mysteriously a few of the gifts disappeared over night and I spent my Christmas day Lego-less, wondering if every action did indeed have a reaction. I thought I had answered that, but then Brian Greene introduced me to quantum mechanics. Of these perennials however, no question has been so recurrent, has so defined my life, as the one I experience every time I walk into Starbucks. My mind, foggy from the aroma of coffee bean, becomes aware of greatness even before the rest of my senses. I turn and the inquiry becomes clear: “What is that guy doing on his laptop?” It must be something extraordinary, as evident from the 13 shot venti soy hazelnut vanilla cinnamon white mocha with extra white mocha and caramel sitting on the coaster in front of him. He takes a sip. He’s no Gatsby. He’s the real deal. I couldn’t even begin to formulate a response to this question of questions until the summer I spent studying at Oxford. There’s something about being at a nine hundred year old college that forces someone to think things beyond themselves; how many others had sat in that Oxford Starbucks, undoubtedly doing things worthy of the good and wise? How can I be one of them? The theory of I came to form, was implied in the first question. They are doing things. Good things, so my imagination tells me. The answer isn’t necessarily what they’re doing, it’s that they’re doing. Text trivializes this whole moment but it was comparable to a religious experience for me. I was a thinker, but many of my thoughts I never acted upon, perhaps from sheer inertia. I was filled with a ferocious desire to be just like Starbucks guy, a man of action. Nowadays I too carry my work into Starbucks with me, and, as I relax into the cushions of the couch, I know I am."-L.C.
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