Posted 4:36 PM by Blah blah

I talked to Ellen for the first time last night! I thought I was listening to the radio because this girl has such a sweet, sparkling voice! Seriously. If she said "Would you like fries with that?" to me I'd listen and be nodding yes, yes unconsciously. Hahaha... (Here's a recording of Ellen's voice.)

I can picture her being a deejay for a station that plays "love songs after dark." On 96.5 FM here, this nationally syndicated radio host Delilah has just that kind of voice. I wish the right people get to hear your radio demo tape, lady.

I've been writing this journal for 21 months now and probably have enough pages to fill one or two books. Here's something I wrote last August:

Searching for Meaning

Saw an inspiring interview with Kim Polese today on the Silicon Valley TV show Malone. Polese is the founder of Marimba, a systems management software company for e-business. She recently stepped down as CEO and president and now is chairman and chief strategy officer. Before founding Marimba, she had been at Sun Microsystems and been the first product manager for Java (originally called Oak), when Sun was creating the language in 1995. She is one of the key people who helped introduce Java to the world and make it famous. Here's an interview with her in JavaWorld in which she tells in detail what it was like to be the main marketer for Java and make all of those initial marketing decisions.

She laughed at the hype that surrounded her when Java and Marimba were both new and hot. She shrugged off the media frenzy that descended on her when she started being a Java spokeswoman, when they called her a "sex symbol of Silicon Valley." What she stressed most---which impressed me the most---was her dedication to building a company with long-term value, her commitment to stick with Java, Marimba or any other of her babies for the long haul. She criticized what she called the "disease" that infects the Valley nowadays, the inclination of inexperienced people to start a company with the intention (from the start) of selling it, of the quick cash out. She criticized the twenty-something entrepreneurs she has met who are worth millions but are still depressed because they got less VC funding than their classmate from B-school. She talked about her passion and drive for creating something and her desire, from youth, to be some type of entrepreneur. Polese said she "didn't force" her plan to run her own business and didn't worry about being too late. It would just become clear when the time was right. Finally, she stressed how the best thing in life, for her, was working with people, all committed, to create something of lasting value. Of testing herself and pushing her limits.

I admire people who can do that, since I DEFINITELY don't always do it myself. I feel that commitment to creating or developing something, whether a company, a delicious meal, a relationship, or oneself, is what gives life meaning. After reading the existentialist Camus in high school, I became one of those who feels we create our own meaning. That everything inherently could be meaningless by itself. That everything that is neglected loses meaning gradually. That the meaning of anything is proportionate to what at least one being cares about it. So the lesson from Polese is to care, to be engaged, to focus on enjoying and facing whatever it is we are handed by life. That banishes boredom and self-centeredness and makes us feel most fully alive.

To a piano tuner who lovingly caresses those metal strings as he listens to a change in decibels, or to a gardener who rescues tulips from caterpillars, theirs is the most important job in the universe. To a mother who faces a crying baby son, he is the most important person in the world. And so our attention shifts throughout the day, but depending on how alert and intense we are at that instant, time stops and we become entranced, king of the world for a scene in a classic film, a Jack Dawkins at the bow of a ship with the wind through our hair.

I think we spend much of our mature life searching for meaning. Our quests for love, sex, a house, a child, or a foot in middle management are all quests for significance, for carving out a lasting monument to who we are and what we stand for. We seek the transcendence and escape we feel while immersed in those things after which we love and lust. As we get older and wiser we become more defined. Our thoughts become more stark and opinions more sharp, our faces grow more lined and etched, our personalities more petulant and cantankerous, and our uncertainties and fuzziness more faded. When we die, it is like the painter has finally finished toying with his sketch.

So it is good we are always feeling slightly incomplete.