Stanford 5 Year Reunion: Day One Observations

I'm in San Francisco now for my Stanford 5 Year Reunion. I got here Thursday and had my first full day Friday. My trepidation about coming back to see classmates and friends and acquaintances fell away to reveal more amusement. I wanted to go back to Stanford and hear people tell me how excited they were about the things they were doing and what they've been up to and what they plan on doing the next 5 years. With the welcome exception of a handful of enthusiastic classmates, I found some people have resigned themselves to the former college social constructs of one of the following: (1) one-upmanship, (2) decidedly bored, (3) domestic subjugation, (4) pharmaceutically-enhanced apathy. It left me feeling sad to see so many classmates who wanted to achieve so much 5 years ago demonstrate such zombie-like surrender to what their lives had become, as if they had no choice in where they were going because whatever choices they made to get them where they are today seemed like "the next logical step in life" as opposed to the next exciting challenge and opportunity. I anticipate tonight's grand event to be more of the like, though I desperately want to re-meet people who aren't on beta-blockers now. Is it too much to ask people to be mildly interested in what they are doing, and to talk about the less mundane aspects of their daily lives?

Reading: Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson