Question: a life less ordinary?
Revelations have come in bunches lately. I was lamenting to my friend about my recent "discovery"/fixation of my own mortality, really for the first time in my life. It is difficult to parse apart whether my depressed mood precipitated this discovery or the preoccupation darkened the mood. "Am I too young to be thinking about my mortality?" I wondered out loud. My friend, a world traveler first, a comedian second and a perpetual bachelor third, surprised me with his answer, "I have been aware of mine since I was 19!" Coming from someone who works just enough to support his traveling addiction, it was a shock. My thoughts about the fragility of life has brought my focus back onto my career, family and ultimately old age and retirement. On the other hand, "time has been stalking" my friend since he was 19, and his response has been to experience life outside the mundane (school/work) and all the diversity the world has to offer. "You can work until you die, but how much would you pay, when you are old and weak, to enjoy life like you could when you are young?" I have in the past reflexively (but secretly) sneered at people who seem to follow their hearts and dive into the side streets of life with every impulse. I saw them as undisciplined and unfocused. Yet I have seen with my own eyes the colorful lives and impressive accomplishments that some of my best friends have achieved with this seemingly nomadic life style (yes including "the one that got away"). My conversation with my travel bug friend simply crystallized the idea of carpe diem. Funny how I have always thought myself as been mature beyond my years and controlling my own destiny while life has passed me by. I don't have to travel to Antarctica or swim with the Great Whites to be less ordinary. But some changes are in order.
posted by hedgehog @ 1:08 AM
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