Opposites Day Every Day

As I heedlessly forge ahead with the transformation from well- to over-educated, it occurs to me that there is great irony in having pursued musicianship within academia and scholarship outside of it. Even as the "mature" one, it would have taken unusual foresight and diligence for my 17 year-old self to fully grasp the tradeoffs lurking in each box of this unholy Punnett square. At 34, meanwhile, I have become a bit more conversant in such matters, and while superficially "the grass is always greener," in reality I'm thankful for and secure in my identity as a disciplined musician + free-wheeling scholar. In fact I'm tempted go even further than that: it's hard not to view both postures as necessary correctives to some troubling larger trends, and as such I'm hard-pressed to conjure any substantive regrets about the methodologies I've stumbled into.