The Two Lives...

I am going back to life. Exactly an hour from now, this Greyhound bus will reach Mt Laurel bus station and my wife and son will be waiting to pick me up. 20 minutes from there, I will be back home and back to life.

I live 2 lives. There is one that begins every Thursday afternoon or Friday morning. That is a different planet. A zombie in a subway train heads uptown in Manhattan. Daylight emerges at 116th street and Broadway. The gravel pathway at Morningside Heights feels the heavy footsteps. Heavy because the feet that tread on it bear a torso that is laden with a humungous backpack, filled with strategy, statistics, accounting and economics. Looks like it needs some leadership!!! The footpath is tired because the heavy feet are often joined by a hundred others. The walk is short, luckily, and the beaten path is soon relieved.

The feet that tread this path every other Friday morning then enter their divine abode, a place known to mere mortals as Warren Hall on Amsterdam and 115th. The flavors of a breakfast fill the air. If it weren't for the food (and there's more to come at lunch and tea-time for the next 2 days), one wouldn't get any sense of human inhabitation in this sanctum sanctorum.

Conversation is heard, but to the mere mortal, the language is hardly understood. Supply meets demand and there are multiple regressions in the air. Affiliation networks are being built and competitive advantage is being developed. Liabilities are being turned into assets for sure.

The lights go on and 2 huge screens emerge from the ceiling. Intense graphics and intricate formulae hit the screen. The conversation continues, the language still undecipherable. The jackets have to go for there is a heat building up. Feels like hyper-intelligent material is mixing to articulate super brilliant solutions to problems that exist in a fourth dimension. Whatever this is, there is a seventh sense at play and the play goes on to the 11th hour. The 12th is usually "Happy". Don't be fooled by the unceasing flow of alcohol, the elements that are consuming it are connecting with other powerful elements to form compound, even complex realtionships.

The storm emerges. Flashes of lightning and brilliance mix in an electric environment. Catalytic minds are engaged in converting the compex transactions from the eleven hours into power packets. These packets will be thrown back on the screens the next day and will drive more complex transactions. Minds will converge to create war-plans that will decimate commonly known cliches. The midnight oil is burning, but the storm is still on.

The calm after the storm. Comforters are drawn and the sound of sleep is heard. The physical forms seem to be at rest for what will be a couple of hours at best, but the electrons in the nerve centers are showing rapid and frenetic motion. The mind is alive and active as ever. Churning ideas, crunching numbers, processing information that will be critical to use once daylight emerges again.

Heavier footsteps on the Morningside Heights pathways and the divine abode is alive again. More netwroking, more negotiations and more of the intense exchanges when the screens come down. The 11 hours repeat themselves, only more intense, if anything. At the stroke of 6.30, the birds fly away. Some to Happy Hour, some to still more networking, and some heading home.

My bus is just pulling up at Mt Laurel Greyhound station. Soon, I will be home and back to life...