I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

And this is the slowdown. down.

Had you met me in my early 20th, you would have thought me in my early 20th, you would have thought me superficial. Looking back now, my life then seems quite narrow.

I rarely read newspapers. I kept my head empty of foreign affairs

and doggedly sought the nearest club or house party,

and not just on weekends.

I fashioned myself as an artist who at best occasionally wrote

poems and even though I sought open mics and bars to perform, ashamedly I was in it for the social vibes. That is, chiefly to meet

interesting women. Back then, poetry like my other pursuits, sports, fashion and music, lacked depth.

My current friends and colleagues, similar in age, were already making headway into their careers as

non-profit professionals aiding newly arrived refugees, as foreign service officers stationed

in South Asia, or as academics researching uses of robotics and health care.

Seemingly, everyone but me strived early on to make a difference or to make their mark.

Yet, fortunately, life is no race when it comes to personal growth.

My nomadic sensibilities also fueled my curiosity and people, their passions, and then, eventually, in the world of ideas and letters. I became a voracious reader and

traveler. I clot several cross-country trips. I camped underneath the stars on the Rio Grande,

dance to Zydeco music in Louisiana,

and ate regional foods such as Memphis Barbecue spaghetti.

I dove into works by Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Morrison, and pondered everything

from the limits of a rational mind to the depth of a woman's inner life to the psychological damage of whiteness as an aesthetic pillar in society.

I sought adventures that led me in mind and spirit to believe as Ralph Waldo Emerson said life is the grandest of

experiments.

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