am, with my true nature and gifts, with what I care and do
not care about. My resort to adolescent rebellion reflected
that simple fact.
I apologize, belatedly, for my immaturity, for the grief I
gave my supervisor, and for whatever damage I may have
done to the data. None of that is to my credit. But I was
laughing to keep myself sane. Perhaps the research I was
doing was what a good sociologist "ought" to do, but it felt
meaningless to me, and I felt fraudulent doing it. 't'hose
feelings were harbingers of things to come, things that
eventually led me out of the profession altogether.
Obviously, I should have dealt with my feelings more
directly and exercised more self-control. Either I should
have quit that job under my own steam or settled in and
done the work properly. But sometimes the "shoulds" do not
work because the life one is living runs crosswise to the
grain of one's soul. At that time in my life, I had no feeling
for the grain of my sou] and no sense of which way was
crosswise. Not knowing what was driving me, I behaved
with blind but blissful unconsciousness-and reality
responded by giving me a big and hard-to-take clue about
who I am: way closed behind me.
Neither that job nor anv job like it was in the cards for
me, given the hand I was dealt at birth. That may sound like
sinfully fatalistic thinking or, worse, a self-serving excuse.
But I believe it embodies a simple, healthy, and life-giving
truth about vocation. Each of us arrives here with a nature,