On Saturday, some pals and I embarked on a three-hour tour whose destination was Philadelphia—to see The New Deal. The concert was positively amazing, but that's for another time.

Walking up and down South Street easily gave the impression, this place is really quite indie. A flash of manic longing temporarily burst through the cloud of my current depressive state, wishing that somehow life could be as basic and uncomplicated as participating in the scene, life being defined in terms of what music you listen to and having sufficient credibility to wear a given band's name on your shirt without being a poseur. They really do have decent fashion sense, but as much as I'd like to dress like them, somehow I know it just isn't me.

I'm in fact having terrible trouble defining who I am at the moment. At one point in my life I was the guy in the corner at the party, eavesdropping on the conversation of the moment and interjecting astute observations to the appreciation of those who understand my extra-dry brand of humor. But the party seems to have dried up, the audience is gone, I work for a living, and I have very little to show for it. My current conclusion is that because of all the positive reinforcement I've gotten in my life, I never developed any sort of work ethic, and around 2001 or 2002 I experienced some personal trauma, in the process dropping the glass statue that was my sense of idealism and instead taking up jaded apathy. My social consciousness is gone, most evenings I stay curled up in my room, not even watching TV, and the only long term goal I really have anymore is investing enough money that I don't die broke.

As harmful as I know it can be to gauge one's performance against others, other people around my age and from my own high school are going out and doing things that exceed initial expectations. My best friend has written an influential senior thesis that could help change the way the U.S. military thinks about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". Another became a grad student at Harvard, another is going Peace Corps. In high school, I was supposedly the smart one, the one with promise. But what have I done? I trudged through school, certainly, but I haven't proven myself. Haven't done anything special. Haven't earned any of the special styles bestowed upon me when I was younger.

You may call me "Peter S. May, ex-genius".

I know, I just know that at some point in the past I had ambitions. It's hard to remember what they were; all I really remember is that, one by one, they were shot down as being impossible, improbable, or generally unnecessary. Right this moment I have something that my naive elementary-school self, my angsty middle-school self, and my idealistic high-school self lacked—means—but at some point I completely forgot why I needed them, or possibly decided that such things weren't worth pursuing anyway. My life has finally stabilized, but the innate need to do something important or notable has yet to be fulfilled.

For the first time in a long, long while, I've rediscovered the problem of where within myself to look for this glowing grail of ambition. But unlike times before, where I was sure that I had drive and creativity that I'd simply forgotten, from my current vantage it's more clear that if I ever had these things, it wasn't in a form that was worth having.

I'm frustrated and have no idea where to go from here.