your lunch break affirmation
three days since i shaved and looking like the total dumb schlub that i am (little sleep for days, covered in drywall dust, bandana around my forehead and, i shit you not, masking tape holding cotton balls in my ears like a stupid trailer park frankenstein (don't ask)), i sat down to eat some lunch and catch another twenty minutes or so of the DVD my wife got me for christmas, flogging molly's whiskey on a sunday).
listening to the band members talk about their work and their experiences, and listening to their music, i got a flash of a reminder about the importance of doing something singluarly satisfying with your life. these guys and gal are doing it - playing what they love, not being bashed into the round hole people wanted to fit them into, being great.
this dovetailed yesterday (or the day before?) with some old pix i found - i'd been cleaning out the basement, which since we moved in has been the repository of everything old not yet unpacked and everything new that can't go in the garage: a mess of carpet, knicknacks, dishes, half empty paint cans, baby gear, clothes, and orphaned hardware. i stopped to leaf through a stack of photos* and was reminded how long it's been since whatever, and how much has happened, in spite of the fact that if you ask me what's going on i'll answer, like anyone, 'not much.' (that's almost always a lie, though, because a lot has been happening, much of which we don't even remember the next day and the only problem i have with this is that some of the stuff worth remembering gets mixed in with the stuff that isn't, so we're lucky if there's a photo around or some mention from someone that reminds us.) in just that couple of minutes i got to think about a bunch of stuff i hadn't in quite awhile, and it felt good to be reminded not just of those times, but of the context in which i need to keep my life: a lot has happened, and there's hopefully still a lot of time for more, and right now, and the worries of right now, are actually a lot smaller than they've felt lately.
what all this boils down to is the thing we know, but too easily get distracted from: don't spend more of your short time here than you absolutely have to on things which about which you're not passionate. someday very soon you will be dead. it'd be a shame if all they had to remember you by was 'not much.'
* while i love that after a certain point our reams of photos reside on a hard drive and not in shoe boxes, there are lost opportunities to stumble unexpectedly across a rubber-banded set of memories and kill a few minutes being reminded of something you hadn't thought of in a long time while putting off whatever you intended to be doing.
listening to the band members talk about their work and their experiences, and listening to their music, i got a flash of a reminder about the importance of doing something singluarly satisfying with your life. these guys and gal are doing it - playing what they love, not being bashed into the round hole people wanted to fit them into, being great.
this dovetailed yesterday (or the day before?) with some old pix i found - i'd been cleaning out the basement, which since we moved in has been the repository of everything old not yet unpacked and everything new that can't go in the garage: a mess of carpet, knicknacks, dishes, half empty paint cans, baby gear, clothes, and orphaned hardware. i stopped to leaf through a stack of photos* and was reminded how long it's been since whatever, and how much has happened, in spite of the fact that if you ask me what's going on i'll answer, like anyone, 'not much.' (that's almost always a lie, though, because a lot has been happening, much of which we don't even remember the next day and the only problem i have with this is that some of the stuff worth remembering gets mixed in with the stuff that isn't, so we're lucky if there's a photo around or some mention from someone that reminds us.) in just that couple of minutes i got to think about a bunch of stuff i hadn't in quite awhile, and it felt good to be reminded not just of those times, but of the context in which i need to keep my life: a lot has happened, and there's hopefully still a lot of time for more, and right now, and the worries of right now, are actually a lot smaller than they've felt lately.
what all this boils down to is the thing we know, but too easily get distracted from: don't spend more of your short time here than you absolutely have to on things which about which you're not passionate. someday very soon you will be dead. it'd be a shame if all they had to remember you by was 'not much.'
* while i love that after a certain point our reams of photos reside on a hard drive and not in shoe boxes, there are lost opportunities to stumble unexpectedly across a rubber-banded set of memories and kill a few minutes being reminded of something you hadn't thought of in a long time while putting off whatever you intended to be doing.
posted by jim at 1/02/2007 01:07:00 PM
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