When I Am A Yak
In the time between the last post and this one, I've been back and forth on what its subject should be. One day, I'll think a particular topic is important to speak on, but before I can start putting words on the page, life comes along and distracts me. Things happen that draw me away from my intention to write, or else my mind is drawn to another topic of equal importance. New ideas or interests occur to me, and they too are shuffled to the bottom of a list that includes more pressing ways to eat up my day. At the end of it, or rather at the point where I can see breathing room to actually put a post together, I'm faced with all sorts of possibilities. There are half a dozen things I might expound on, some merely interesting and frivolous, some with weight and purpose, and some I know would have been perfect if only I remembered what they were. Where to start? and What to leave behind?
Those two questions, I find, are more and more common as I grow older, and they apply to much more than writing alone. When I was young, I'm sure I had difficulty choosing also. It seems to be woven into my nature to try to see all sides of a question, to know all the options. Still, earlier in my life, there was more of a sense of opportunity about making a choice. When I chose one thing then, there was a chance that the other option might still be available when I was done exploring this path. I might never do that, but there was still a liklihood that choices were temporary. A four year old future astronaut sees no reason why he can't also be a fireman sometime or a doctor, too. At that age, it's not so much What will I try, but What will I try this time. As life creeps forward though, choices must be made with more care, as they've stiffened up into more permanent things. Experience tells you you're not likely to double back and choose again later, and you realize that you would have little time to do so even if you could steer back that way.
A lifetime has a realistic limitation on how many different adventures you can enjoy. The choices left for next time may have to be next lifetime, provided you believe in reincarnation. Even so, will you remember then, when you're a yak lolling on some Tibetan hillside, that you had wanted to try skydiving on this go-round? No. You'll be busy making plans for a future you to visit that pink mountain over there someday.
Maybe this is why our perspective is limited. If we had infinite lives and knew it for certain, would we be as concerned to get our adventures in while we can? For me, it's a good excuse to write. There may be a practical limit on what I can actually do, but I can increase my opportunities by writing more of those unchosen paths. I've got a whole to-do list for when I am a yak, anyway, but then, there's no harm in planning and I'm sure it's shorter for my choice to write now. It might be shorter yet if I didn't end up using a whole post doing nothing but remarking on my indecision.
Those two questions, I find, are more and more common as I grow older, and they apply to much more than writing alone. When I was young, I'm sure I had difficulty choosing also. It seems to be woven into my nature to try to see all sides of a question, to know all the options. Still, earlier in my life, there was more of a sense of opportunity about making a choice. When I chose one thing then, there was a chance that the other option might still be available when I was done exploring this path. I might never do that, but there was still a liklihood that choices were temporary. A four year old future astronaut sees no reason why he can't also be a fireman sometime or a doctor, too. At that age, it's not so much What will I try, but What will I try this time. As life creeps forward though, choices must be made with more care, as they've stiffened up into more permanent things. Experience tells you you're not likely to double back and choose again later, and you realize that you would have little time to do so even if you could steer back that way.
A lifetime has a realistic limitation on how many different adventures you can enjoy. The choices left for next time may have to be next lifetime, provided you believe in reincarnation. Even so, will you remember then, when you're a yak lolling on some Tibetan hillside, that you had wanted to try skydiving on this go-round? No. You'll be busy making plans for a future you to visit that pink mountain over there someday.
Maybe this is why our perspective is limited. If we had infinite lives and knew it for certain, would we be as concerned to get our adventures in while we can? For me, it's a good excuse to write. There may be a practical limit on what I can actually do, but I can increase my opportunities by writing more of those unchosen paths. I've got a whole to-do list for when I am a yak, anyway, but then, there's no harm in planning and I'm sure it's shorter for my choice to write now. It might be shorter yet if I didn't end up using a whole post doing nothing but remarking on my indecision.
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