"Life Without A Map"
I have lived the past several years of my life in a cozy house located in a wood on the shore of Lake Michigan. I have a quiet, dignified existence. I like other people but rare is the event I seek out their company. With my companion, my books, my garden, my dog, my love of good food and wine, and my interest to always move beyond where I am at, my life is complete. "Voices" that do not take me forward, I do not seek. I was successful in business, made some money, and traveled the globe, many, many times over. In almost all of these places, I took the opportunity to seek all that was mortal, and often, that which was not. From these journeys I have found my nirvana, a peace in sitting and staring out the window. I have ascertained their is wisdom in reticence. I am easily at rest in this life. I am a contented, solitary man.
I am fifty years of age and up until my health dramaticallydeclined a year ago, was in my absolute prime. I had achieved more than I ever sought after. The sole purpose of my life was constructed around more of this, more of that. What else was there beyond a continuation of more? Yet, driving me then, driving me still, was the resolution to drive myself (who else?) beyond this "more." I have long sought to move (or remove) a rock in the river. In a "big-picture" world very easily without meaning, I found myself seeking to be one of those rare individuals who enters the flow of things, and attempts to make changes for the betterment of mankind. I want to contribute beyond procreating. I have no choice.
Saul Alinsky, in an interview in
"Playboy Magazine"
April 5, 1972 , wrote"No, not anymore. There was a period when I did, but then suddenly it came to me, not as an intellectual abstraction but as a deep gut revelation, that someday I was going to die. That might sound silly, because it's so obvious, but there are very few people under 40 who realize that there is really a final cutoff point to their existence, that no matter what they do their light is someday going to be snuffed out. But once you accept your own mortality on the deepest level, your life can take on a whole new meaning. If you've learned anything about life, you won't care anymore about how much money you've got or what people think of you, or whether you're successful or unsuccessful, important or insignificant. You just care about living every day to the full, drinking in every new experience and sensation as eagerly as a child, and with the same sense of wonder."
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Copyright 2004
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