I think my favourite U course is the Shakespeare course that I took in my penultimate semester. Ha, not a law course!
Anyway, there's a speech from Macbeth that I really like. It's on the surface a very dark and sad quote. But if you go deeper you notice there's a lot of guidance you can derive from it.

Macbeth:
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

Because Macbeth says this when he's lost everything except his own life, the speech is taken to signify his immense regret at the way he's lived his life. It's a realization that he's strayed so far away from his honour and his original ideals. So yes, please stick to your ideals, i.e. what makes you, you. 

And the "sound and fury that signifies nothing": I think it's trying to say that emotional temperance is the way to go. Extremes-- greed, depression, lust, ambition, etc. are all intense emotions but what belies them is actually a sort of hollowness. These emotions are built on false premises. 

Sometimes it's hard to find that sort of golden mean of your emotions, i.e. that state of mind that allows you to achieve that emotional temperance. Humans are humans, at many points they do experience those intense emotions. But I think that emotional temperance is a coming-of-age process. People may come of age at different stages of their life, but first there is the teenagehood to adulthood transition, i.e. the 20s. 

And Macbeth lost his temperance, because of his foolish ambition, so he ended up like he did. i.e. dead and depressed. He only realized at the end that he had built his life on false premises and it was all tumbling around him at that point.

So I think, life is to be lived moderately. It's not always rarh-rarh. It does not always progress in a straight line, it could eddy about in circles, it could bring you back to square 1. You don't have to overreach yourself to attain some highfalutin lofty goal. 

The meaning of life, if any, is not apparent to us. E.g. Steve Jobs, in a commencement speech I think, mentioned that his life didn't make sense when he was younger, but when he grew older he realized that all the dots were connected and they brought him to where he was that day. So it's only at a certain very mature age that you realize that hey, I can kinda spot some meaning in my life, if I look at it in a particular way. And that can only come with accumulation of life experience and the passing of time. And lots of alcohol. 

So when you're young, like I am, don't try to find any meaning in life. You'll go nuts. Just. Live. It. If I could draw an analogy, what I mean is, remember that teambuilding game where you're blindfolded and you have to go through an obstacle course, relying on nothing but your sense of touch and your team's instructions? Like, go left! crawl! step over this! I think life should be lived like that. The instructions, well, they come from your brain and heart. And the blindfold represents that hurdle between yourself and eventual comprehension. 

Feels like I've digressed. But yeah, my point is, don't stray from yourself, don't try to find meaning in your life, and enjoy the ride. 

Okay. Just saying all this because I've thought of this speech frequently enough to have to write about it now. It's a very beautiful speech. 

Signing off as--

a bored millennial who has time to bum around

I just watched a video starring Idris Elba. It's an advert. Anyway, he asks old people and middle-aged people, what do you wanna be when you grow up? And their responses are funny-- they burst out laughing or they stare at him goggle-eyed.
And he says, smugly, you realize you haven't stopped growing, right?
And they're like, ooooooooooooh yeah... Somebody explained that, when you get to a certain age, you think that if you haven't done something, it's unlikely that you'll be able to do it the rest of your life, because real life.

I like it. It's inspirational. In a way, it's very typical of the millennial generation who don't have typical material goals that their parents had. Millennials find it hard to grow up-- I read it in an article somewhere. Millennials don't believe in holding down a job for 40 years to support their family. Well, a few do have such a dream. But I don't. I can't bring myself to be committed to a career for the next decade, much less 40 years. Maybe not even 5 years. 2 years sounds like a more realistic goal for me.

1. I'm not desperately trying to start a family. Falling in love is the first step, and that already sounds like a fantasy to me. Anyway, I don't need a steady cash flow for that. I mean, falling in love... I just think it's hard to imagine another love that could be as unconditional as the family love I currently enjoy.
(Perhaps I'm being very idealistic. After all, a lot of people do have this notion of a transactional type of love, without even knowing it themselves. On the extreme end of the spectrum is the marriage of convenience, so a transactional love is something like that, but to a lesser degree.)

2. I'm all for building a life, for myself, that has meaning. We know that the Singaporean 5Cs dream became outdated a long time ago. (Or do we?) I'm fine as I am without them.
So if this career doesn't work out, I'd see it as an adventure for me to venture in another direction. Something that has less prestige is fine. How could you measure your life with prestige? I can't. It could be a job in a publishing house.
And if Idris Elba were to ask me that question, I think I'd say I want to experience much more of the world-- in terms of geography, in terms of human nature, in terms of culture. I don't know how I can achieve that. But it's good to keep it in mind as an indicator of sorts. It sounds very vague, idealistic, hipsterish, selfish, and vain, and more realistic people would be rolling their eyes if I told them this. Well go ahead, your eyes are yours to roll.
I mean it's to each his own. I personally observe that people with material wealth aren't necessarily happy. And yeah, money can't buy you happiness but you can't be happy without money, yeah I know that as well. But you don't have to be a millionaire to be happy right?