After my last “purpose seeking” write-up, I received this reply from Demis:

“…My opinion is you should definitely keep going it is always a pleasure to read your blog. Also why not ask from people to write things to you regarding things that we all pretty much face... since we are all taking the next step at the moment. This might be a much more individual experience, but we all share the same style of experiences...”

And of course he’s right. The point was never that we were all going through exactly the same things, or having the same experiences, it was that we shared a bond that wasn’t there before, so in a sense, the fact that we are all scattered all over the world searching for work (or working) in London, New York, Mumbai, Paris, Dubai, Moscow etc. doesn’t really mean too much more than the fact that some of us chose to write papers or study in the library, while others did it in the café, and still others at home, some with partners and kids, some with friends, some all by themselves. Yes, the physical distance is greater and has some practical consequences, but if the whole thing was as important as we all like to maintain it was, then they’re not such a big deal.

The other impact of being flung back into the world is that I’m no longer insulated from popular culture, and my accumulated ignorance has come screaming to the surface. I don’t know how many of you listen to your INSEADDANCETASTIC, but the Gnarls Barkley track on there (Crazy) submitted by…damn, I forget…has pretty much become the new overplayed mega-hit of 2006. I had no idea. I just knew I liked the track. So I was in Mexico and put it on the stereo. My friend looked at me like I had stabbed him. “Oh, is this big in the US?” Apparently it is. So, if you’re having similar readjustment problems, I can sympathize. I also realized that most songs with the word “crazy” in them are good. I typed “crazy” into the search of my iTunes, and came up with these, all of which I recommend as socially acceptable alternatives to the “Crazy du jour.”

“Crazy he calls me”-Billie Holiday, “Crazy Baldheads”-Bob Marley, “Crazy on You”-Heart, “Crazy Old Soldier”-Johnny Cash+Ray Charles, “Crazy Like Mad”-Leslie Scott+Irene Williams, “Let’s Go Crazy”-Prince, “Crazy Love”-Van Morrison, “Crazy Train”-Ozzy Osborne, and my favorite: “Crazy”-Willie Nelson.

Enjoy, you crazy crazy kids.

Finally, I’m headed to Moscow on Wednesday to start work with Russian Standard. I’ll be working with one of P1P2 group mates, and I think that’s awesome. Hope this finds you all smiling.

It’s been so long at this point that I hesitate to revive this old dog. But something tells me to push on. I guess the thing is that finding a theme or thread or something of that nature now that we’re (many of us…no offense to those still loving it up at the alma mater, your vote counts too, of course) flung across the globe, facing very different, and much more individual daily adventures. I don’t want to just send out a yard sale of thoughts and observations, though, I suppose that’s what it was all along; it was the physical and experiential proximity that allowed me to get away with it.

I tried the “outrage and confusion at the great big world around me” tack for a minute, but, well, it’s dreary, it’s neverending, and you get this from every other piece of media you consume. It’s a little like Pringles- once you pop, you can’t stop. Of course, I bring it up to say that I am, in fact stopping.

So to make this a bit personal, without really settling on a good reason for writing this as opposed to anything else, I’ll say a few things about me recently.

I was in Guadalajara for a night a little over a week ago. It’s significant, because that’s where I was born, but I hadn’t been there for 27 years..about. It’s weird having absolutely no connection with the place where I was born, because I know most people do. I think most people will tell you that the city/town/whatever where they were born feels like home. I was thinking about this against the larger, perpetual backdrop if my abiding inability to figure out where in the world I really want to live…not for the short term, because that’s not so important to me (although sooner rather than later, I’d like to live somewhere…the humor has started to drain out me telling people that I’m a homeless unemployed MBA) but it makes it sort of hard to set certain life goals if you can’t even pick the continent on which you mean to achieve them.

Since graduation, I’ve done London, back to France, New York, DC, Wyoming, Hawaii, Guatemala, Belize, and now Mexico, and next week I head back to NYC and then to Moscow for a job interview. Just to add a practical piece of information that makes some sense.