Aspirations

Every child, as they are growing up, is asked many times "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Answers fall over the spectrum, but the main idea of the question is to get them thinking about their future. Several weeks ago, my father asked me what I wanted to be and it has been something that stayed with me. On my morning walk I pondered the question and had a kind of revelation, an epiphany about what the question really gets one to ask oneself. "What do you think you will be doing when you have reached your full potential?" When I thought about it this way specifically, I give more credence to my past experience's, my life as a whole, and I'll honestly say, I can't answer the question. I don't know myself well enough to be able to speculate what I may become. Do any of us really know ourselves so well that the future holds no surprises for us. The answer is no. Partly because I don't believe one can know their self so that well, but mostly because the world can't help but throw a wrench in the work and in that crucial second, the world you knew is gone. An offshoot of your existence that you will never see again. And if we could, would we want to? Some say ignorance is bliss, but our own future, like it or not, is a subject our mind is naturally inclined to dwell on. In the end, this is how I decided to wrap things up: to some extent, life can be predicted. Not with crystal balls, tea leaves or the stars, but by knowing yourself. But don't have the audacity to believe that you can cheat fate of another end, because like the beating of a butterfly's wing, the smallest action in the world can influence our lives in an infinite number of ways.

Time: Does it Fly or Crawl by?

Remarking on the passage of time is something that man has been doing since before he was man. Since troglodytes lumbered across ancient plains, history was being made and kept. Though crude and vague their cave drawings give descriptions of their lifestyles and environment. The natives of ancient Choco Canyon spent their whole lives studying and documenting how the heavens changed over time, erecting massive monuments to mirror the cycles of the sun and moon. Through the ages mankind has been compelled to mark and represent every second that ticks by. And it is not a whim, but a divine calling. Without considering the past, one cannot fathom the future. There would be no foresight, no provision. Such an existence would not even be primal, but feral. Gorging and than starving, rather than rationing and surviving. To prevent this self destructive end, we take what we can from the past and use it to make a better future.

Meeting Our Holiday Ghosts

I'm sure everyone who reads this is familiar with Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." Throughout the night of Christmas Eve he is "haunted" by phantoms of holiday seasons past, present, and future. What was, is, and may be "haunts" us all to an extent, I suppose. But as I was thinking about that story, I paused to think what those spirits might have shown me. Waking up at 5:00 in the morning and waiting impatiently for my parents to wake up at 6:00 so we could go open our gifts. Sneaking peeks at the Christmas tree and how many gifts Santa had brought. A flurry as gifts almost explode out of their wrapping, the blazing fire consuming the remains. I tried to remember a specific year, but I realized that I couldn't really. I don't have specific memories of Christmases past, just thoughts and feelings. As for the present Christmas, I'm trying to keep my expectations lower than usual. Our family has had a trying year and is not financially on its feet yet. I'm sure we have had similar years in the past too, and that's what makes those past Christmases so beautiful in my mind. That despite our situation, we have never not had presents on Christmas. We have always had something waiting for us under the tree and in our stockings. As to Christmases yet to come? I confess no small amount of anxiety over what it will be like. For two years I will be sleeping in a bed that is not my own, the familiarity of my "home town" far behind me. After that, I can hardly imagine what life will be like. Marriage, children, and Christmases of our own. It must be an interesting thing for parents to watch their children grow up like that. So today, think back to a Christmas that you loved. Whether it was as a teenager, the first as a couple, the first with a child, or just memorable. Think of what your own Holiday Ghosts might show you of your past, present, and future.