SO MANY PEOPLE, SO LITTLE …
Thursday Aug. 21, 2014
Sometimes we get to sit at the fun table. Sometimes we sit with dullards – and too often we sit alone. I’ve begun – barely begun – but I’ve made a start, at getting to know people better. So often I know someone socially or in business – often this is the case with people I think I know fairly well, but how deeply do I know them? How much, how well?
It is rather late – if I have a short life – to start making the rounds of my life with a new approach, but it seems to be a better way to go. If I’m going to make it work though, a long life will be required, so I’ve already go that part aligned in my head!
Anecdotes.
Short bits make big points.
Is life OK and full if it is just a series of anecdotes?
Os it really a short story, or full length novel?
Looking inwardly, we are encyclopedic shelf, a lifetime in compilation. To most people we know, we’re probably closer to anecdote status.
And whose fault is that?
Most people, I’ve been finding, are far more open than I used to think – not that they’ve changed, but maybe my view of them has.
Stories don’t flow out of us – they leak out of life, some take only moments, but most take years. Our story, however far along, is not yet told. We could put it all down – then something would change, a re-write would be required. Needed. Deserved.
I’ve been thinking lately, it is time to resume writing fiction. I’ve come across some great stories lately – and some fascinating characters, but they aren’t for telling here, or anywhere actually, because the knowing is too personal. The understanding, so private. Telling stories of someone else’s joys is easy. Telling their pain feels too much like voyeurism. But there is something powerful about some stories – not their pain du jour, but in their handling of it. Measured, as things are, against a history of knowing someone – is the wow factor.
Most of us live extraordinary lives of ordinary-ness, we matter to those who are close and to those who depend upon us for something. Does that matter to anyone? Does it matter at all?
If someone came upon my life without a tour guide, would it be worth stopping for photos and an autograph – or would I just be passed by?
Parts of my life need some white-out, some deserve a high-lighter. Large parts have been wasted. I don’t really think so, but we all have tough days and lonely nights when it becomes so easy to berate ourselves with our own past deeds.
Bruised, we wake up to the same reality that was yesterday – too much to do, not enough time. But is that true, really?
Too much to do? That’s all about choice.
Not enough time? We all have all we need – on this subject we are all equals, everywhere, just one day, one full day, one 24-hour monkey on our back … every day.
Or, we can approach it differently. It isn’t a 24-hour monkey. It is a 24-hour backpack of opportunity that gets lighter each hour, as we spend those minutes and dispose of so many things to do … with the objective of ending our work day with time, energy and enthusiasm sufficient for enjoying the time left over …
Looking around my landscape, my history, my experiences – I realize the most fascinating things about me are things I know about me, and most things other people know is so similar to what we all know about each other – not much. Not that there isn’t much there. On the contrary, there is plenty, but what do we know?
There is plenty of time.
The challenge, is to make our time into plenty.
Mark Kolke
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: 9C/48F, overcast pre-dawn dark, rain-soaked grass and a chilly breeze suggest a sweater rather than short sleeves should be my morning-wear as this month seems to be vanishing before my eyes; Gusta answers to soggy-dog this morning …
