Having a goal in life

-
All things considered --
and having spent most of my life trying to live up to the expectations
and ideas of other people,
I have come to a conclusion:

My goal in life is to be the person
my dog believes me to be.

Comments

Post a Comment

The topic is the bolded sentence at the beginning of each post. Comments should pertain to that subject. Something more than "Like" or "You're wrong" is requested.

Popular posts from this blog

... and so the night ends.

-
Image
This fork of a Joshua Tree fell over some months ago; you can see how the stump is nearly horizontal. They store water in their trunks and can be incredibly heavy, and it just fell over from its own weight. The upper part was laying across my driveway, and the trunk was hanging on the fence, so I had to cut it off. The stump was still partially rooted, so I let it be. Now there are a half dozen shoots, incipient new branches, sprouting from the stump. As I was growing up I would sometimes be envious of those friends and classmates who already knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. I still know a few of them and they actually have had the jobs they wanted to do, or moved to the places they said they wanted to live, done the things ... you get the idea. During my lifetime more than one person has thought me aimless, or lacking direction for my lack of a clear vision for my future. To be honest, they weren't completely wrong; I'm making this up as I go. It took me a...
Read more

Knowing and Understanding

-
Image
I had my first epiphany (in the Joycean, secular sense, not the religious one) when I was in second grade, standing next to the telephone pole across the street from my house, talking to the girl next door. I don't remember how the conversation came up - it was probably one of those challenges kids throw at each other, of the "I know something you don't know" kind. The problem was "what is 3 times 2"? I couldn't tell you exactly what she said that triggered it, but at that moment a clear vision of two sets of three appeared in my head. 3 times 2 actually meant 3, two times. All I had to do was add them. Mostly what I remember though was the sensation - that feeling that a door had been opened in my head, that "ah-ha", light bulb moment. That brief moment when it seems you can touch something eternal, a glimpse into the infinite. Decades later, they still happen. I would really miss them if they didn't. On one level, I know that it is ...
Read more

Jinba Ittai

-
Image
When they are running, horses take one breath perfectly in time with one stride. At a canter and gallop horses do not breathe by expanding and contracting their chest - all air movement comes from movement of the legs and diaphragm. In other words, the act of running actually moves the air in and out of the lungs. From the traffic light at the bottom of the grade, the highway runs straight and flat five miles across the desert floor to where it disappears into the Interstate. If I catch the green light coming off the hill, I can carry my speed onto the flat. It's smooth and usually lightly traveled, but there's also enough tamarisk trees and slight hills to give the CHP a place to hide. Discretion is the better part of not getting a ticket in 20 years. I hit the red light just before the freeway. They added this signal when they widened and re-paved the highway - it can be a pain if you get behind a truck on the on-ramp. I'm first in line though, and when the light ...
Read more