Take The Money And Run...

Whenever I have a crisis of conscience, I always turn to the Good Book. No, it's not the Bible; it's Anagrams by Lorrie Moore. If you've never heard of her, you should definitely pick her stuff up - it's witty, poignant and remarkably keen. She's more of a short story writer but Anagrams is her first novel. And frankly, if you're between 23 and 33 and have no fucking idea where your life is going, get this book and read it cover to cover - the answers may surprise you. Here are 3 of my favorite paragraphs (slightly abridged):

"You know what poetry is about?" said Eleanor. "The impossibility of sexual love. Poets don't even want genitals, their own or anyone else's. For a poet, to love is to have no lover. And to live" - she raised her wine glass and failed to suppress a smile - "is to have no liver."
....
The teacher stared down at the tabletop at something scratched into wood. DROP ACID, it said. And then beneath it, in different writing, NO TAKE IT PASS-FAIL.
....
In nature certain species, in order not to be eaten, will take on the characteristics of something that is an unpleasant meal. The viceroy, for instance, looks so much like a bird dropping, and as an adult so much like the ill-tasting monarch, that birds, as agents of natural selection, as Darwinian loser-zappers, leave the viceroy alone. Similarly, the ant-mimicking spider is avoided because it appears to have the fierce mandibles of an ant, though it's really only a spider playing dress-up. The function of disguise is to convince the world you are not there, or that if you are, you should be left alone. You disguise yourself as an imperious teacher, an imperious lover, an imperious bitch, simply to hang out and survive.