MORE CHOICES THAN YOU CAN COUNT
… along for the ride, or just observers?
Wednesday Apr. 9, 2014
Remember that line: “run, Forest, run”
We are all running, until we stop.
We can run from trouble, rehabilitate pasts, but not escape: whatever lengths we go – there we are!
In spite of ourselves, along for often bumpy rides.
Expectations for next 25 or 30 years might be realized (great opportunities!) or cut short (oops!).
Mid-life crisis?
No.
Mid-life outlook.
Viewpoint.
Kind you get out of the car to see. C’mon, stretch your legs, have a look . . .
Actuarial number-crunchers lows risks, but actuaries face same grim reality.
Governments, business, media and next generations send us reminders of our diminishing relevance, illustrate horizons where ambitions are shelved, ambitions stored, and dreams stop – distancing ourselves from hard work and even harder work setting new-goals.
They tell us ‘trade-in lofty expectations and opportunity pursuits for comfy sandals, warm slippers, cardigans, coupons and daytime TV’.
We are not our past, unless we want to relive it, like re-watching a familiar movie.
Not our present – unless we are so content with current nirvana that we avoid change (see slippers and cardigans) . . .
Are we owners of our future?
Choice is required.
Not necessarily popular choices, but OURS, to own, live them and then die with them.
This realization requires exploration of ‘what is it we really want?’, committing to making those plans, ambitions our reality. Not our last choice. Simply, our next one.
There will be more, if we want them, but if we pass now, will we be open to the next, and the next, and more after that?
Our question remains: are we running away from something, or toward something?
Mark Kolke
197,776
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: 2 C/35F, light snow overnight mostly melted, everything wet (and Gusta brought back lots of muck on her under-carriage), some grass looks almost green already ...
Reader feedback / comments always welcome:
BY OURSELVES – or HAPPINESS AT ANY PRICE? - Interesting that yesterday’s musing ended by mentioning census, followed by today’s opening question on consensus. While both words suggest the antithesis of individuality, I think that neither is about conformity – or anonymity. Consensus is the result of a process that seeks (if not obtains) the consent of all participants (in contrast to a simple majority rule), so everyone counts for something. Census is more than just enumerating (and assigning) numbers; it is a process of acquiring information about individuals. Given the sheer magnitude of the number of individuals involved, it can seem like an impersonal statistical model, and due to privacy laws, the output information is masked and generalized. However, family historians (and professional genealogists) were thrilled to find ancestry gems when personal census details were recently released for private and public use (after 92 years in Canada, or 72 years in the States). So take your place in history and answer the questions (preferably in long form) so that your future posterity can get a glimpse of you (in the context of your world) long after you are gone!, KK, Calgary, AB
