Not least of these is that the "human doings" are what give others the luxury of majoring in "friendship, respect, trust and love." Even a good dog can accomplish those things. Building a skyscraper or even designing a part for a copy machine takes a little bit more.

You want some advice? Here's some random and poorly-organized thoughts:

As far as a college degree, find something you like that also has a reasonable chance of employment. Believe it or not, there's lots of things like that.

Then keep your eyes open. Don't be afraid to change course. Believe me, you will. Maybe several times. Life is what happens when you're making other plans. ER's degree had little to do with his eventual work. Neither did mine. An amazing number of billionaires don't have college degrees at all. Scrooge McDuck started out as a shoe-shine boy.

It doesn't hurt to look at job listings and see what they want. But remember, those are things they want to see. They do hire people without them if they're impressed. I've talked my way into most of my jobs, and did pretty good at them.

Don't spurn McDonalds. I've never worked fast food, but I've worked some low-end jobs. It's a living, especially when you're young, and not the dead end you might think in some cases. My best friend in high school worked up through McDonalds into management, and is now running the food services at a large university. I suspect entry competition is a bit tougher now, though.

Try to avoid schools and degrees that require you to go a quarter million dollars in debt. This is not something that's easy to dig out of.

You can get as good an education in most things at the non-fancy schools as you can at the Brand Name ones.

Keep your own counsel. Think about what you're told. Think about everything. "Common sense" is a valuable starting tool. At college, believe it or not, being a professor does not, like being the Pope, include a Certificate of Infallibility. Particularly in less-rigorous subjects. If you're taking a political history class, be aware that you are going to be getting a lot of bullshit. There are large sectors of academia that could survive nowhere in the outside world. You'll know them when you see them. Even business is rarely taught by successful businessmen.

You are living in an age where finding things out for yourself is easier than ever before, but keep in mind that there's going to be a lot of bullshit there, too.

Truth, like the position of an electron, can never be fixed solidly. But you can get closer and further away. Anyone telling you "there's no truth" is selling something. People sell ideas too, not just products and services, and money is not the only coin people want from you.

You will learn more in your first five years out of college than you did in all of your schooling. An amazing amount of basic survival skills are never addressed in schools. The most useful thing I was taught in high school, other than math skills, was how to type.

Don't get discouraged. I wish to hell I knew what I know now when I was 19. Probably the oldest wish in the book. The irony is that, really, there's no way to transmit it, not even to my own kids, although I do the best I can. Life needs to be lived. I do know that a lot of things I worried about back then turned out to be a lot less important in hindsight.

When you are my age, you will also look back at yourself at 19 and wonder how you got so worked up about things. Hell, I wonder how anyone allowed me out without a leash. This is true of almost everyone. You've got a lot of room in front of you yet.

Own your own life. It can be done.