Goethe's Blog: Coffee Shop

I am in a coffee shop.

Sipping Lipton tea, because I do not have enough money for a cappuccino.

And because I can get free hot water refills without having to buy more teabags.

As long as I keep on sipping my tea, they cannot kick me out and I get to use their free Wi-fi.

I think I have hit rock bottom.

I have $ 370,000 in student loans – not a big surprise after getting a B.A. in philosophy, attending four years of medical school, two years of law school and even a Master of Divinity.

But no real job. Probably because I have never applied for a full-time job.

I get by, teaching at community colleges as an adjunct professor and tutoring some lazy high school students who are not very bright but happen to have rich parents. This is enough to pay my rent, but I do not have health insurance and I cannot defer my loan payments any longer.

I know that I am smarter than all the other professors and students, and I do not care that they do not recognize my brilliance. The fact that they think I am a loser is the best proof for my superiority. The unrecognized genius. 

The sad thing is that I am so smart that I know I am ignorant. They are so ignorant that they think they are smart. I like these two sentences. Maybe one day I will turn them into an aphorism.

The lady at the counter is glaring at me. I do not care. 

I keep on sipping my homeopathic Lipton tea. I think it is my sixth hot water refill, all from one teabag. If homeopathy works, than the tea buzz should get stronger with every refill. No buzz yet, but I probably just need to dilute it further. 

I think I know why I am so lazy. I am not afraid. Once I realized that I was smarter than every other person, I lost both - my ambition and my conscience.

As I am going through my email on my laptop, I see one email that does excite me. it bears the symbol of the elite hackers. Hacking into databases, uncovering secrets that nobody else has access to, this sounds like something I want to devote myself to. True knowledge, occult knowledge. I might make some money, too.

 All I need to do is to click on this link and I will join the ranks of the greatest hackers that have ever lived on this planet.  

I think I am going to be a hacker.

Image via Wikimedia: Painting by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein - Goethe in the Roman Campagna, 1787