DREAM TEAM
… for life’s most precious moments
Friday Mar. 7, 2014
All I want is ______ .
Someone asked me the other day, to describe what I want, what I’m looking for?
Not the first time I’ve been asked that question. I’ve been asked many times. So many thoughts, values, issues and aspirations to balance . . . and not the first time I’ve give this simple little answer: comfort and joy (borrowed from FO) . What a precious simple statement.
What I want?
How often do I ask, how often do you ask – ask ourselves some variation of that question?
Wanting something impossible doesn’t stop wanting it – but improbability diminishes our chances. Often we hear improbable stories, how determined people defy odds, stretching their physical and emotional limits into the impossible zone …
Those amazing stories make day to day foibles and challenge seem so petty.
So, what DO I want?
Less than before. Not to have less, but to be satisfied by less. Sure I still want to have successes in my work – not because I plan to be rich in cash or opulent in spending, but because success in accomplishment in things I do usually equates to income. That tends, methinks, to have us set our sights, our measuring methods, to relate life performance to financial performance.
I think there is a lot more to measuring worth, value and substance than using a calculator. Imagine staring at a beautifully treed mountainside. If you are a hiker, you see and value the challenge and the view. If you are a tourist, you take pictures. I you are a logger, you calculate the board-feet and start chopping.
Success looks different for everyone, doesn’t it.
So what do I want?
I used to want so many things that money could by – or that it could represent. It meant success. Things I could have, who I could be ( or be perceived to be ) seemed important – like a merit badge or a diploma on the wall. It had no real meaning – but there were many years where I thought that it did.
I’ve often read and quoted Viktor Frankl. His book Man’s Search For Meaning is profound because it deals with what we all search for.
But the search for meaning is not the same as what I want.
What I want isn’t about who I want either – though I’ve spent lots of time/energy in that search too.
Could it be, what I want, what I am searching for and who I want – that these three could be wrapped up in a single statement, a simple mantra?
If we could define it, if I could define her, if it were possible to design perfection – would I make a statue to put in the town square in hope she might come to life one day? Ancient Greek mythology or my imagination, my Calgary mythology, cannot define it as shape or size or volume, or by characteristics. I’ll know it when I see it, feel it …
Yeah, sure. I’ve told myself that line before. Many times. Some of those times I was right – but things didn’t work out. Like a no-fault car accident, nobody to blame for the wreckage.
All I want is a room somewhere, far away from the cold night air.
With one enormous chair (and sharing it with someone special).
Oh wouldn’t that be love-ely.
And comfort.
And joy.
Balancing acts – that’s what life is. Balancing work and play. Balancing hopes and dreams on the fulcrum of reality. Balancing time in the mud, time in the ditch – with the times of our lives, with time that tics. Tic toc. Tic toc.
And talk. And play. And talk. Some golf. Some dinner. Some travel. Balancing thick and thin, short and tall and the long and short of it . . .
We are all, aren’t we, just poems waiting to be written.
We all want, we all search for, that perfect couplet . . .
We’ve had it in the past tense, imagine it in the future tense.
We just want it, here and now, in the present tense.
Don’t we all?
Mark Kolke
198,568
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: -17C / 2F, light overcast, a sense of humidity for a change, light breeze and perception it is warmer (thanks to the forecast) so soon – very soon – traction, bare and dry and milder climes will make for long long long long walks will return, in part for Gusta but mostly for me . . .
Reader feedback / comments always welcome:
We are officially Bon Wierians....much work and circumstances have kept me silent. I am ashamed to say I haven't taken the time to read too many Mark Musings lately and in spite of the rain have kept myself too busy away from the computer. We basically bought a house that was started and ready to live in but in need of all the finishing touches. The walls, except for my bedroom, are pressed board so we need to cover them. The floors were covered in self-stick vinyl tiles without the additional adhesive, so we are having to apply extra adhesive to the ones that are worth keeping and recover the ones that are not. Also, google mail has lost my contact lists randomly. Sometimes I can access them and sometimes not with no explanation being offered. Beware, the NSA may have your e-mail address for some unofficial, official snooping. LOL! One never knows these days, George Orwell how wise you were. I am okay other than overdoing it every day. That glass of Chardonnay every evening is doing a better than usual job of relaxing me and my head hits the pillow some days before the sun goes down. Don't mean to concern any one. Will make a point in the near future to read and respond to those musings I have awaiting my perusal. Hope all is well with you and your Dad and Miss Gusta. Thought Spring was on its' way and then a nasty little winter storm blew in with much ice and unseasonable chilly weather. Lost our first go of tomatoe plants. Oh well, I know where they make them....tee-hee! Later gator (we are now in that neck of the woods where spotting a gator in a creek or one of the ponds would not be so unusual, GW, Bon Wier, TX
Hi Mark: The last four messages have related to my life and family at this present time.. Very interesting. The one "Scared to death", how powerful. Thank You for the inspiration and value each message carries. Best Regards, SB, Calgary, AB
Hey Mark -- you and many of your readers might find this dictionary to be useful, funny, overflowing with basal familiarities, and almost always despairingly correct! At least all of the above! And more! http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/ , Cheers, BE, Calgary, AB
