I promised myself that this year would be about focus. The theme and the goal for the whole year were to finally gain some sort of focus and clarity in my life.
I’ve become aware of death stalking me like a black panther in the jungle. It waits and watches and pulls no punches when it’s time to gather you up. The only solace I can draw from this short life is that I tried to live it the way I wanted to.
The trick is to figure out exactly what that means. Since focus is the key, I have to know how I want to live my life. What do I want to do? What experiences matter most?
When I was a kid I wanted adventure. Exploration and discovery around every corner. It didn’t matter if the venue was the depths of space or the deepest ocean trenches. I wanted to experience the world like the great names of the past – Magellan, Cortez, Pizzaro, Lewis & Clark, Marco Polo, Peary, and Byrd. I used to think of the world as a big, mysterious place full of danger and excitement. And I believed that it was all for the taking. Nothing was impossible for the man or woman who believed.
And then I grew up and discovered that all life really seems to consist of is replaying the same shit that your parents went through, or your friends. You get older, finish high school, go to college, get married, have kids, buy a house, get buried in credit card debt and car payments. The only real adventure that most adult Americans ever experience is keeping ahead of the tax man and the lease company. I can’t speak on how it is in other countries around the world. I did live in Germany and Korea for a while, but since I am really well versed in the ways of my American life, the experience was slightly tainted.
When I was in Germany I did try to hang out with the natives more than some of my friends. I went to German bars and hangouts where no one spoke English. As a result I learned German fairly quickly and I got to know people on a personal level. But that was over 20 years ago. I’m sure the things I did learn were only a tiny portion of the reality of their lives. One thing I did learn and hold on to was that the Germans I met weren’t all that different from me. Yeah, they spoke a different language and had different favorite foods. But they had the same worries about money and family and nuclear war.
As I’ve grown older the meaning of ‘living it my way’ has come to mean finding a path that’s mine. Not one someone told me about or suggested I try. I’ve had a lot of wonderful people in my life who are convinced that I want them to tell me what I should do. That’s partly my fault. I’ve asked questions when I should have just been doing. I guess they just figured that since I was asking questions it was okay to tell me what to do instead of giving me the advise I was really looking for.
At first I didn’t see any reason to reinvent the wheel when it comes to avoiding mistakes. Now I see that a bit of reinventing is required in order to have a life that is strictly unique. I look at what some of my former heroes have done and I can see that they followed a path that usually led to them being laughed at or talked about. People with true courage don’t follow ANYONE. They do what their heart tells them is right and eventually, that ends up being the case. My heroes include:
Captain Bill Pinkney - the first black man in history to circumnavigate the globe alone in a sailboat.
Captain Jacques Yves Cousteau – a pioneer of exploration and invention involving the ocean.
Albert Einstein – just the name says it all.
Charles Darwin – the English naturalist that gave us the basis for the evolution of the species and challenged purely religious way of thinking.
Sam Cooke – the incredible voice behind my favorite song of all time ‘A change is gonna come’
This isn’t the entire list, but they are the ones who flash through my head most often. I don’t want to be any of them, but I want to live my life with the same conviction that they did. I think that’s the real reason I started this blog in the first place.
Everyone is searching for the same thing. I think everyone is born into that sense of wonder about the huge thing around them called the world. Some differences are to be expected, but since all humans live and die - sometimes at the most basic of circumstances - we are really more alike than we are different. So it doesn’t matter if you are from Pulaski, Arkansas or Bangladesh. Our worries and needs are the same.
So since none of us are all that different, why is it that the mysterious, magical world has become such a dangerous thing? Doesn’t everyone want the same feeling of freedom and safety? I would think that at this point in our evolution as a species we would get that we all live together or we all die together.
And the desire to control your life is the same.
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