In college, I was a math major. I used to sit in the back row, for every class, slouched low in my seat, with the hood of my sweatshirt pulled over my head. I almost never said a word, never asked an intelligent question, and generally, had no idea as to what was going on. My neighbor, for at least two years, in the back row, was an equally mysterious guy. Math majors don't socialize with each other ... in fact, they refuse to engage in small talk of any sort ... and so what I know about this guy is based on observation and the one 30 second conversation we had.

His name was Talwar. He was in import from India, two years my junior. He was a nationally ranked Indian Tennis player who deified Leonard Cohen. He would sit in the back row with me, doing his Russian homework, occassionally looking up to the blackboard to see what the professor was doing. The one conversation we had took place towards the end of my senior year when, after watching him struggle with his Russian homework for most of the class period, I cooly said to him, in perfect Russian, "You know, I speak Russian fluently, I could actually help you with that."

It was hilarious.

Anyway, I was reminded about Talwar because today I went to see the film "Leanard Cohen: I'm your man."

Cohen was a master poet; often cited as the Byron, the Blake, the Tennison of our time. He wrote a song "Traveller" which, he said, was about being guiltless in the context of a destiny unfulfilled. The way he put it was like this: In our lives, we come out of youth bearing some sort of destiny, some sort of goal, some sort of mission. We live in a world full of hope and idealism, where we assume that we are the masters of our lives, the heros of our tale. And then, reality sets in and we find that our winning steak has ended. His point seems to be that success is not about fulfilling your destiny; in fact, according to him, you aren't supposed to fulfill your destiny. Success is about being guiltless in the setting of a path diverted.

I understand his point perfectly.