Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

 

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. Yet it were great reason that those that have children should have greatest care of future times; unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges.”

—Sir Francis Bacon, “Of Marriage and Single Life,” Essays, Civil and Moral, Ch. VIII

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:


"One of my friends asked me how it felt to be a has been. I said, 'At least that’s better than being a never was.'”

—Tom Snyder, NPR interview










( Illustrated version. )


Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

I've had a lot of time to think the last six days, having been home sick during that time with a low down stomach bug. That kind of thinking is not always such a good thing, especially when one has been sick as much as I have this year, but in this case I think it's been mostly productive. Oh, well, once I got over the "Whycan'tIgetoverthisImusthavesomethingfatal" bit. Had a nice talk with the pharmacist and she assured me that a number of people have had this and it does tend to hang on for awhile. So, once I knew I probably wasn't dying—at least, not in this moment in time—I got down to being philosophical.

Nothing as dangerous as philosophy.

My conclusion? I have been concentrating on one thing in my life to the exclusion of all others and I'm beginning to fray around the edges. Now, careerism can be a necessary thing, especially when one is, ahem, trying to build a career. But there does reach a tipping point when it begins to eclipse the quality of one's life. That's the time to ask yourself hard questions, and if the answers are also hard and not what you want to hear—I think you need to listen anyway. As far as we know or can prove, we only come this way once. Even if you believe in multiple lifetimes, the point of even multiple lifetimes is to learn from them. I don't know what you learn from turning yourself from a rounded human being to a walking career, except maybe "Don't do it."

I was having this conversation with a friend earlier. Her husband is truly ill, the kind of "get out of your career or you'll die" kind of sick. It's forced some very hard answers on him and I won't tell you the adjustment has been easy, but he's come to some kind of peace with what the universe has forced on him. Occasionally the old guilt and drive reassert itself, though. Old habits die hard. He said to her the other day, as if it was a bad thing, "It seems as if all I've done for the last year is sit in the back yard, observing nature." She looked him square in the eye and said, "People write books about sitting in the back yard for a year observing nature. Nobody writes books about sitting in a cubicle every day doing meaningless bureaucratic tasks. Nor should they."

My real life cubicle is not the problem in my life. It pays the rent and doesn't demand so much of me most of the time that I don't have head space and energy left over to do the things that are important to me. I like where I work and the people I work with. Not the problem. The problem is that I've erected a mental cubicle of a different sort and shut myself inside that. I really need to ask myself some hard questions about how I choose to live the rest of my life. Time has always been a finite commodity, it's just that most of the time, like most of us, I've ignored that and lived my life as if there are a million horizons ahead of me.

And then I fell asleep and I dreamed that a monkey came in the open window and s**t all over my bed while I was in the bathroom, but I couldn't stop to clean it up because I was running late for a business lunch with a woman named—wait for it—Dharma. And no, she wasn't anything like the ditzy braud from the TV sitcom. She was an intelligent, serious, straight-talking woman who looked me in the eye and wouldn't let me lie or prevaricate or pose.

So, if it's all the same to you, I won't be writing a paean to my cubicle, the real one or the mental one. I need to get out into the fresh air and take a deep breath. Maybe a thousand. I need to feel the sun on my face, wade my toesy through the soil or the grass or the ocean. I need to observe me some nature.