'A temporary thing': Extended interview with Tom Tobias

Web exclusive extended interview: Making the most of right now, with yoga and meditation instructor Tom Tobias

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Editor's note: The following is a largely unedited version of Beau Adams' Day Drinking interview with Tom Tobias. The story as it appeared in the January B issue of the Voice is available here. 

Where: The Coffee House on Cherry Street

Drink: Chamomile Tea

The Tulsa Voice: I can’t work in coffee shops.

Tom Tobias: Why not?

TTV: There’s way too much going on in here for me.

TT: Too much stimulus?

TTV: Yeah. It’s fine for what we’re doing, but I see people working in here, I couldn’t write in here.

TT: See, I could get work done here better than at home because at home there’s always another project. I could always do something, and I would before I did anything else. That’s the way I was in college. I had to have my room perfectly clean before I did my work.

TTV: Me too. I had the cleanest room. Always. Ask any of the guys I lived with back then and they’ll tell you I was a neat freak. But that was just procrastination.

TT: Same here. I was a master procrastinator. Part of it for me was just not being that interested in my classes. If I were interested, I would dive into it. But I started out as an engineering major and then a math major and then went back to engineering and then computer science and then economics - all along I was taking a lot of philosophy and religion classes and if I hadn’t been, I would’ve been out of there. I didn’t see any value in it. Someone else could do that stuff, you know?

TTV: So electives were keeping you in the game?

TT: Yeah. Totally. I was taking mainly electives.

TTV: Your counselor was saying, “Are you gonna take any classes that count for this degree?”

TT: Yeah, I should have probably gone to a counselor; they might have kept me on track.

TTV: I’m laughing at the congruence of our experience, I’m not laughing at you. I did the same thing.

TT: No. I laugh at it myself. I went for like seven years. Did you go a long time?

TTV: Yeah, off and on. Well, I won’t say I attended school much because that wouldn’t be true. But I was often enrolled.

TT: Same thing. There was a semester or two where I went to one or two of my five classes and then because the other ones didn’t interest me, I just didn’t go. I wouldn’t drop out of the class; I would just take an “F”. I had like 21 hours of “F” and then lots of “A’s” in the classes that I was interested in.

TTV: I did the same exact thing. I must say I enjoyed the college experience, I just never really understood the education part of it.

TT: How did your spend your time when you weren’t working on school?