CLOSE PROXIMITY and WAND MAGIC
Friday, April 30, 2021
There is no logic.
Only instinct, coupled with belief and stirred with an imagination stick – let’s call that my magic wand.
If I could wave my magic wand, what would I make happen?
I’ve waved it before, acted on instinct. I’ve plotted strategy, the way an author creates a story-arc, how an architect plans the minutia of a foundation plan and calculates the floor-to-floor sandwich which, when replicated many floors up, avoids the folly on many times replicating an error – while creating magical designs in the process.
My idea is something permanent, something which will last a very long time. Not forever, but for many lifetimes. My idea intersected anticipated diversion of relationship, romance, laughter, and shared time. Both of these scenarios play out in my mind, and I vacillate between the goalposts, from possible to impossible, from probable to improbable.
Yes, we should not take out a mortgage to buy an ice cream cone. Our current term needs should be in balance with our current term resources. Our long-term needs, met by realization of our long-term vision.
And lately, I’ve been questioning my definition of long-term concerning everything in my life, in connecting everything and everyone in my orbit.
I have led a relatively charmed life of good health, comfort, freedom, and associations with marvellous people. I’ve co-created and co-raised two magnificent human beings. I’ve co-created projects of which I am proud, and I’ve created my fair share of mistakes, troubles, complications and taken too many risks. I shouldn’t have limited myself.
I should have taken more risks, chased more dreams, tasted more adventures than I could have expected to handle – because I would have handled them. This is not to suggest I was risk-averse or took a chicken-shite approach because I did not.
I have not done that to be as brave as I needed to be or as open as I could have been. These lessons, it seems, are not taught to us when we are young (or maybe they were, and I was choosing not to listen.)
In any case, it seems late in the game to be learning new things – but I would rather be contrarian.
I may have wasted time and squandered resources – but I’m still here.
So what is my point, what is my conclusion, what is my call-to-action here?
I was imagining the reality of running from a person, force, or power one cannot escape – it might be an escapee from a prison, from Auschwitz, from slavery, from domination – at any point in history, which was both futile and often fatal, imagining the need to race away, to create distance from that foe.
That foe, however vile, is real.
The end of the escape road is death – also real.
My short-term goal is to come to grips with reality.
My long-term goal is to have a fantastic set of dreams which fling unabashedly into pursuit and jeopardy, bringing dreams to life, creating reality before death arrives or takes me violently away – the trick being to cheat.
To cheat death.
And to cheat death, I’ll need to cheat reality – and I think I’m up for it!
I missed many glorious opportunities by way of stupid distractions, believing I was far brighter than I turned out to be, but I don’t think quitting is the answer now.
Not because I want to catch up to anyone or make up for any lost time – undoubtedly a fool’s game now as it always has been.
Instead, doing what I need and want to do with the vigour of someone who will live forever and with the urgency that I won’t. I realize this is a cliché variation on an old theme, but it feels unique to me, and for me, so I’ll plunge in as if I could swim …
The concept of short-term goal vis-à-vis long-term vision is a construct learned later in life than I should have. It should be required instruction from K through 12, through university and grad school – it IS the school of life’s foundation and one of its most poignant and profound lessons.
I had a situation recently – reminiscent of similar past experiences; and while I could easily explain why this is radically different (the person), uncharted territory (the person’s circumstances), and the prospect for anything happening (relationship potential) – I could as easily make a contrary argument.
Though I am conflating two things which might not be aligned or compared, or might not be relatable, they are without doubt both swirling in my brain at the same time – in short, they are both in my head at the same time, which in itself doesn’t connect them, they are simply in close proximity.
This is partly confusing; more importantly – completely relatable. The quick blush look would suggest my interest in pursuing and developing commercial client relationships and development of personal ties are similar in terms of process, in terms of checks/balances, trigger-points, and some chartable stages, tactics and success measurement tools applied to outcomes.
Of course, that reads like nonsense to the uninformed – but it reads like music in my brain where both situations exist simultaneously, in the same head, playing the same instrument.
Somewhere a drumbeat, somewhere are heartbeat, somewhere a brilliant new idea …
Most things, events, and people are ‘olde-school streaming’ forms of distraction. Better, that I focus on tactics, strategy, dispassionate logistics, steps to take, and rules to follow …
Except there are no rules.
Reader feedback:
I loved this Mark! It certainly inspired me! And yes, will definitely look up My Octopus Teacher on Netflix, KV, Calgary, AB