It is the middle of the morning, soon after the appropriate time for brunch has passed and two men are seated in the visitors’ chairs in an office. They are both in their shirtsleeves wearing equally non-descript office attire. There is an unoccupied desk behind them and an old oil-heater next to the second speaker who is seated next to a wall. It is the office of the first speaker though this he does not realise. The curtain rises on the two seated and already in conversation, they mime their speaking as the opening music (The song ‘Metal Vacation’ by Ches Smith, a comical but unnerving piece for xylophone) continues to play, loudly enough that even the front-row of the audience would not expect to hear them and when the music ceases abruptly they are already speaking.
Man 1: I have an honours degree in Swedish.
Man 2: You studied Swedish?
Man 1: No I studied mathematics, the degree itself was written in some sort of High German, which I just assumed was Swedish. Can’t understand a word of it, it could be a diploma in obstetrics for all I know.
Man 2: I studied nothing.
Man 1: Interesting, how did you come to that field?
Man 2: With some ease, I left things up to serendipity. Serendipity gave me nothing.
Man 1: Interesting. I’ve never been one to accept serendipity as a predisposition to anything except winning at cards.
Man 2: You should submit yourself to it; it surely beats other methods for deciding.
Man 1: I suppose you’re right, to decide on one course of action or another is to assume one has the gift of perfect foresight and also the ability to execute their decision.
Man 2: True, no decision can be perfectly assessed against its opposite, except in retrospect. And of course, my deciding to leave the room right now is quite aside from my actually leaving the room, especially since you’ve chained me to this oil-heater.
Man 1: I’ve done no such thing.
Man 2: So you haven’t. I suppose I’ll leave the room then.
Man 1: Do stay; it’s so rare I have visitors.
Man 2: Certainly. But only if you explain to me how it is you decided to study mathematics when you had no idea where your greatest aptitude lay.
Man 1: I knew it didn’t not lay in mathematics.
Man 2: Yes, but you didn’t know where it least didn’t lie.
Man 1: Of course you are right, but would you have me try everything?
Man 2: Only if that’s how it happened.
Man 1: But how else does one discover his greatest aptitude?
Man 2: Aptitude is not the point.
Man 1: Listen, I get what you mean. I suppose I only nervously accept serendipity inasmuch as it is something I cannot even pretend to affect. I also don’t accept that serendipity has my interests more in mind than my own mind.
Man 2: Well I should let you know that my use of escitalopram has helped in my endeavours to accept what’s given to me by fate.
Man 1: I don’t believe that Serendipity-Acceptance is a known side effect of escitalopram.
Man 2: Maybe it’s Serendipity-Reliance that it causes.
Man 1: I didn’t see that on the Product-Information pamphlet either.
Man 2: Since when were mathematicians privy to the information included with anti-depressant medications?
Man 1: Touché. Has it at least had the intended effect?
Man 2: What?
Man 1: The escitalopram.
Man 2: Oh no. I’m quite depressed. But not in particular by those things that I have accepted from serendipity…
Man 1: Which are…
Man 2: Namely nothing.
Man 1: By what then, may I ask?
Man 2: The weather mostly.
Man 1: Fortuitous then that today brings us sun.
Man 2: I think sir that you insult Newton by suggesting that fortune has anything to do with the sun. Though of course I have no access to the forces of determination that were long ago set in a motion which today brings us sun.
Man 1: I suppose I should have guessed your affinity for Newton.
Man 2: Yes, but I would never have guessed your haphazard approach to the weather.
Samuel L is the naturalest, naturopathic practitioner of natural medicine, working within conventional Western Chi. His expert opinion has been sought in three class-actions regarding the utility of things. He subscribes to a number of eminent publications, in magazine form. His opinions on most topics are held in high regard. You may contact him at work, or just leave a message. He lives in Melbourne, Victoria and likes what you've done with the place. 
I like this. “Inasmuch.”
Lorenz, Mandelbrot and Prigogine Look at Newton From Behind.
Deterministic Chaos Results. Review of Above Article…
On vacation from death, human beings are visitors; as are those employees who sit in their offices day in, day out. If you are lucky then one day you will realise that your office is not yours. Or better, you will forget, like Man 1 does. Indeed, Man 1 goes so far as to realise that the desk is purely unoccupied; groundless. Still, the office has walls. And this is where a lot of us situate our desks or seats, as Man 2 does. What is strange, though, is that for those like Man 2, an old, albeit very predictable, oil heater occasionally sits next to them at work, and looks identical to the walls. In fact, one can barely differentiate between the two.
But let me stop here. It has come to my attention that some readers are confused by Man 1’s education. Simply picture it as a sort of Mandelbrot Set, as one of the most complex of all degrees in education. An eternity would not be enough time to see the certificate (hence his inability to recall whether or not it was a Diploma or a Degree). Let us say, then, that so rich is Man 1’s education that it’s infinite (and try, therefore, to forgive Man 1 for designating Swedish with High German, instead of North Germanic). Nevertheless, here is where the readers’ confusion lies: To write up the determined outcome of the University course, the University Webpage only requires a few dozen characters of code…
To continue: As a result, Man 1 is very lonely. But it’s the natural thing to feel (and to feel it is a contradiction). Man 1 has lost touch with others, and himself, as is shown by the rarity of visits in his office that even himself does not recognise as his own. Indeed, Man 1’s office space, perhaps as a result of his education, resembles an eternal, non-metric continuum. And by contrast, Man 2’s office probably has angles and shapes that remain unaltered by a group rotation. But, and again, if you are lucky then one day you will realise that your office is not yours. In fact, an office, like Man 1 himself, should have an obscure, yet distinct nature; divergent, where different realizations of it bear no resemblance to it. And in principle, have no end to the set of potential divergent forms it may adopt. Yet, if this continuum scares you, then chain (or resign) yourself to fatalism (or the walls and oil-heaters), as Man 2 does; or enter into Bad Faith and blame others for Newtonian enslavement: it is expected.
And please note that anti-depressants helped Man 2 augment self-pity, and that SSRI’s are more worth your while than SSNRI’s, as norepinephrine mitigates feelings of prosthetic-victimization. (The reverse will turn self-pity into bearable fatalism).
Finally, it doesn’t come as a homosexual surprise that 1) Man 1 thinks that the rising sun is serendipitous, as he has neglected his office, and soon will resemble a chaotic and non-linear mess, something his blind maid will have trouble with; and 2) that Man 2 has a picture of Newton above his bed; and 3) this article is published in “sex”…. So, what we have here is a homoerotic, albeit metaphysical relationship ready to explode, as is the natural way of things. Indeed, Man 1 and Man 2 are determined to fuck chaotically (that’s what fractals tell us).
One Last Moral: use a double negative when thinking about your future, it frees things up.
One Last Note: It’s meant to be ‘Mental Vacation”
@Fioccaroonie – Metal Vacation is Track 3, Mental Vacation is Track 4. Do you have the album?
Man 2 studied nothing, eh?
Many generalists spend a lifetime learning less and less about more and more, until they know absolutely nothing about everything.