She was cutting my hair

She was cutting my hair and she asked me, “Why are you so quiet?”

I foolishly tried to assert my brooding silence as deep wisdom and said “I’m thinking, always thinking. I’m just wondering what the point of it all is. I get up, go to work, go to lunch, go to work, go home, see friends, go to sleep, repeat. What do you want to do with your life?”

She wants to go to school and learn more about computer networking. Apparently she’s one of those types where everything technical is common sense. It took me a long time to realize that it wasn’t second nature to everyone. Her uncle got her into computers and the hair cutting thing is just a hobby. So I said “What do you want to do with it? You know, like what changes do you want to make to the world with computer networking?”

“You are the first person that’s asked me that. Most people just say ‘Oh computers are really hard’ and leave it at that. I don’t know what I want to do with it.”

She was happy, relaxed, and funny. Enjoying life.

I’ll most likely never see her again. Despite enjoying the conversation when I remember it I’ll wonder what was the point. You ever feel like people look at the time between their birth and death as something that needs to be filled up. Nature abhors a vacuum. We just stuff whatever is convenient into that space between birth and death without too much consideration as to what we put there.