I'll know it when I see it

I will skip through more than thirty songs on my iPod’s shuffle mode before finding something I want to listen to.  

In the past three days I’ve visited four different gourmet restaurants, none of which I am going to include on my website for innovative gastronomy in Bogotá. 

In the market I buy one of each fruit, even though it’s more expensive than buying a pound of just one or two varieties. 

I don’t watch movies because the thought of dedicating two hours to just one thing overwhelms me with indecision. 

My boots have holes in them and my purse has a broken strap but, despite dozens of fashion retail stores on my street, I haven’t found adequate replacements. 

I have a problem.  It might be ADD.  Or just general neurosis.  There are two general ways of diagnosing this psychosis:

A.  Fear of failure.  The word “settle” makes me sick to my stomach and the thought of precious minutes of life being vacuumed away by something less than amazing is depressing.  This phobia of making the “wrong” choice or “wasting” time renders me incapable of choosing any one thing and makes me a compulsive mind-changer. 

B. High confidence in my own judgement.  I am guarding an inexplicable nugget of faith in the existence of the Ideal (and my ability to find it).   I cannot seem to outgrow the romantic--perhaps naïve--notion that somewhere out there, there is the perfect song, the best movie, the coolest restaurant and the Cinderella shoes.  Until I find it I will go buzzing about my life picking and poking sporadically at a little bit of everything like a bumble bee on amphetamines.

I could claim that my lack of emotional attachments results from a pursuit of Nirvana through the Eight Fold Path of disassociation with the material world... but I am actually just a robot.  Where normal people feel grief and anxiety when separating from familiar environments and relationships, I see each opportunity as a California roll on the sushi conveyor belt of life, to be taken (if appetizing enough), experienced and enjoyed until moving on to the tempura and edamame.  This is not easy to explain to humans.  

My friends are confused as to why I would want to leave an amazing city with fabulous people and move to a state where I don’t even have any family.  My colleagues wonder why I would abandon the opportunity to make a more-than-decent salary in order to go to a place where I don’t have a job (yet) and will likely pay over $800 in rent.  A person who I care deeply for doesn’t understand why I seem unaffected by our impending separation.  I ask myself what it is, exactly, that I’m looking for... 

The answer is I don’t know.  But I’ll know it when I see it.