Back to My Little (?) Black Book
If I felt like it I could probably place these book entries within a few weeks based on parallel blog posts, but I don't feel like it. It's enough that on a Tuesday night about two years ago Tasha asked us each to make a list. (Never have to ask me twice to make a list.) I don't remember now what the specific assignment was, but it was something like, make a list of things you want to make sure you accomplish before you die. Something like that anyway, (Dana probably wrote it down.) At any rate, I ended up with nineteen on my list.
If I took a stab at that assigment today it would look a lot different. Some of what I put down two years ago has been accomplished, (e.g., be a dad,) some of it doesn't seem like such a good idea anymore, (e.g., keeping an enormous fish tank -- who am I kidding, I don't clean the ten gallon tank I have,) and some of them just don't seem important anymore -- getting out of retail isn't as urgent now as it was then, my desire to smoke a pipe has been assuaged by the occasional hookah session, and I no longer feel like I'll die unfulfilled if I never publish a book.
Some are unreasonable -- I'm unlikely to invent a time maching -- some are simply financial: visit every MLB ballpark, attend a World Series game, take a transatlantic cruise, cruise the Nile. Some would be a lot easier with money, but would also involve some luck -- meeting Willie Mays, having a beer with Don Zimmer, attending a no-hitter, meeting Emily.
Others though, are works in process. Number 18 was, "be known," and it's happening in conjunction with number 11 -- "escape the Machine completely." We're getting there.
Still others are merely matters of making the effort -- know Spanish, finish reading The Lord of the Rings, (I quit halfway through The Return of the King). Neither of those seems to matter as much now as they did on that random Tuesday and they, like many on my list, are unlikely to ever happen. The important stuff will though, and has, and is, and that makes it easy to let go of my dreams of hobnobbing with Hall of Famers.
Haven't quite given up on my time machine though.
If I took a stab at that assigment today it would look a lot different. Some of what I put down two years ago has been accomplished, (e.g., be a dad,) some of it doesn't seem like such a good idea anymore, (e.g., keeping an enormous fish tank -- who am I kidding, I don't clean the ten gallon tank I have,) and some of them just don't seem important anymore -- getting out of retail isn't as urgent now as it was then, my desire to smoke a pipe has been assuaged by the occasional hookah session, and I no longer feel like I'll die unfulfilled if I never publish a book.
Some are unreasonable -- I'm unlikely to invent a time maching -- some are simply financial: visit every MLB ballpark, attend a World Series game, take a transatlantic cruise, cruise the Nile. Some would be a lot easier with money, but would also involve some luck -- meeting Willie Mays, having a beer with Don Zimmer, attending a no-hitter, meeting Emily.
Others though, are works in process. Number 18 was, "be known," and it's happening in conjunction with number 11 -- "escape the Machine completely." We're getting there.
Still others are merely matters of making the effort -- know Spanish, finish reading The Lord of the Rings, (I quit halfway through The Return of the King). Neither of those seems to matter as much now as they did on that random Tuesday and they, like many on my list, are unlikely to ever happen. The important stuff will though, and has, and is, and that makes it easy to let go of my dreams of hobnobbing with Hall of Famers.
Haven't quite given up on my time machine though.
"Always we hope someone else has the answer.
Some other place will be better,
it will all turn out.
This is it.
No one else has the answer.
No other place will be better,
and it has already turned out."
--Lao-tzu
Some other place will be better,
it will all turn out.
This is it.
No one else has the answer.
No other place will be better,
and it has already turned out."
--Lao-tzu
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