Junior Contemplates Time Ahead

To the Editors:

“So what do you want to do with your life?” Simple enough question, right? I mean, how hard can it be to set up an entire existence with parameters and expectations after being an adult for a whole three years? Surprisingly the answer is “really damn hard” and I am realizing that more and more lately.
Now that I am a junior, I have been yanked from my position of relative security into a cold and scary world. The first two years of college for me were just setting everything up so that at the end of my four years, I would be able to graduate. It was great, I had a little package of time and they said “just do this stuff in this time and you will be fine.” Now I don’t have a package, I have an expanse, an amount of time and options. I do not like this one bit.
I have started looking at grad schools, but this doesn’t make me feel much better. I know I like psychology, but there are so many questions. Do I want to teach? Shrink heads? Bamboozle an old and senile Bill Gates out of all of his money? Would I need a grant for that?
One thing I have thought about is writing children’s books. Look at Stephen King, who is hugely rich and whose books I absolutely loved when I was a little kid and Imustkilleveryonewithanaxe…oops, darned typos. But seriously, the lady who wrote Harry Potter is a zillionaire by now, and maybe president, I wouldn’t be surprised. And with a doctorate in psychology I bet it would be possible to write the perfect children’s book. I could experimentally determine the maximum enjoyment ratio of humor to action, plus how educational a book must be for parents to approve. I could create the perfect set of characters that could be used in a whole series of adventures. Another idea I have been kicking around is going into art. Now I am not a traditional artist in the sense of having any sort of artistic skill or vision. But what I do have is data. That is, I could have data. I could go to modern art galleries worldwide, poll artists and art lovers, and see why they love the art they do. I could then create the perfect piece of modern art, which would be sold to a wealthy collector to be donated to the Smithsonian or, possibly the British Museum, I won’t be picky.
Of course, once I make my millions via the methods listed above, what will I do with my life? One option of course is to use my psychology expertise to mess with people’s heads. I could buy television commercial time and create 30 second micro-plays about the meaning of life. I could plaster an entire city with posters of a creepy face with eyes that follow you everywhere.
Or, if my book/art happened to be extremely successful, what about a whole theme park? Once patrons sign a waiver of liability or whatever, they would enter a world where everything is extremely creepy and off, like Disney World but on purpose. The entire park would be a series of conditioned response elicitors, nonsense signs and various positive and negative stimuli. People would leave either enlightened about the nuances of the mind, or in a straightjacket en route to the conveniently located psychiatric ward.
Hmm, now that I think about it, maybe my future is not such a bleak one after all. It just goes to show what one can accomplish with a quality college education.

–Eric Murphey
College junior