someone called it…this quiz told me that i have a motor.

I know I have a motor. I know that I can’t settle and that I can’t sit still.

But the test told me that I was an “achiever.” So, it feels official somehow.

And I have some plans. I have some stuff that needs doing.

and I am not certain how I am going to get it done, and I am not sure that I have what it takes, but I feel very sure that I am going to keep trying until it happens.

Not going to take failure for an answer.

There is a lot of fear rolling around. What will happen? What if? And what then?

I have mentioned before that Fear Saps Passion.

I want to live a passionate life. And here’s the rub:

I will live a passionate life whether I want to or not.  I am designed that way.

Looked at this way, fear is the shadow of passion. I can take my passion, and funnel it into fear of what may come. Or I can take it outward, and channel my passion into energy for what might be possible.

That doesn’t mean that fear is inherently bad. But I think I shall phrase healthy fear as caution. I should be cautious, but not fearful.

Caution is appropriate. Fear, I think, is not.

I know this is how the future wprks right now, but somehow I had higher hopes. There should be a word for this some thing akin to deja vu.mmwhich says “I have lived this time in my imagination and now that it is actually here I am disappointed”

I thought wecould be better than this by now

of course, I ended this by asking:

Picked up Run Rabbit Run by John Updike. THis book shows up on the must-read lists with regularity and I thought I should give it a try.

This is my second try. The first try I choked on the main character. His disaffection reminded me of Catcher in the Rye, whose main character I find repulsive.

But, it is highly recommended and I needed a new book. So. Take two.

I was telling Chris about the book. “I am still not sure I am going to like it, but the prose is beautiful.”

“What’s it about?”

“well, the main character is mourning the fact that his best days are behind him. He was a basketball star in high school,” I tell him.

“That’s a well-worn theme.”

I am not so sure it is, not in books anyway. I think it comes up a lot in movies, but I don’t think it does in books.

It is certainly not common in Victorian literature. Austen and Dickens were very forward-looking.  And Shakespeare was a man of the moment, not much nostalgia in his works.

The Great Gatsby was not about the past.

It would seem that this back-of-the-hand-to-the-forehead thing started with the Baby Boomer generation.

The generation that went to fight world war 2, they did not have that tradition of mourning their best days behind them.

However. However.

It is a serious thing to contemplate. What is it, to come to the conclusion that your best work is behind you, never to be realized again.

Elizabeth Gilbert talks about this for TED.

She wrote a super best-seller book. And has this question after “Aren’t you afraid that you are never going to be able to top that?”

What if the world runs out of opportunities for greatness?

Rabbit, in this book, says it in a conversation. His pastor asks him:

What makes you think you are different?

“You think there is no answer to that, but I have one. I once did something exceptional. I was a first rate ball player. Once you’ve been first rate at something, it takes the kick out of being second rate”

What a problem! is doing something exceptional the same sort of thing as the curse of winning the lottery? Nobody is happier after winning the lottery.

Is achieving greatness something to protect yourself against?

There is a characteristic to the boomer generation that they are aware of their co-horts. They are a group, a feel their size and the eyes upon them.

So, Rabbit did something not merely exceptional, but popularly applauded. So did Elizabeth Gilbert when she wrote her best-seller.

I am not actually that impressed with Gilbert’s book. I don’t think it is a beautifully written book. But people bought a lot of copies.

Being popular is a particular kind of exceptionalism. But it is not the only measure of excellence. In fact, it may very well be a poor measure of excellence.

As I think about what I’ve done and what I plan to do with my life, I know that what I am most proud of is not what is best recieved.

I have to use my internal measure. What did I do today that I consider excellent work? If I am satisfied with and pleased with what I have done, then my life is good. If my satisfaction was tied to other people’s reaction, then I would be in great danger of never achieving it.

How do I know if I am doing a good job? I have to be the judge of that.

And if I don’t know how to improve my craft, and do better work over time then I would have to be worried.

I may have gotten a standing ovation last week, or years ago. But if I can sit down and bang out an essay, a blogpost or a piano piece alone in my home that I know is better than anything I’ve ever done, I’m getting better.

I like ovations. But they are not required

So if I have gotten better in the interim years, and not merely saggier, what is it I have gained?

What can I do?

I am a mother, so I can lose an entire night’s sleep and count it as an ordinary thing.

I can write a book. I didn’t have the wherewithal to do that at 25.

I can fully recognize the bad and still embrace the good in the people around me.

I can persevere. I wasn’t sure of that when i was 25. I hadn’t had to persevere very long.

I understand people better now than I did then. I understand them in a broader, human nature kind of way.

I better understand the nature of the emergency.

I am better able to fix it, but a lot less sure that it is fixable

So lehrer says you have to be willing to fail to make the big leaps.

I am ready to make some big leaps. But I don’t relish failure.

However, I am willng to risk failure for this to happen.

Onward and upward, my friends

as is usual for me, when I contemplate an important life moment, I think way ahead.

I’m turning 40 on my next birthday. It’s 6 months away. But I’m thinking about it.

I am in my prime. What am I doing about it?

I look around to see what others have accomplished by this time, to gauge where i should be and what i should look for.

It would seem that many people are willing..willing, not necessarily content…to remain in a holding pattern.

Almost everyone can imagine something better. But most people do not strive to attain it, and very few people indeed strive and succeed.

They find a job, a habit, a set of circumstances and stay there.

I gained 30..well,maybe 40 pounds when I was 20 years old and haven’t really lost it. I have tried for decades

DECADES

to get out of the holding pattern. At least I lost some of the weight. So i’ve been 25-35 pounds overweight for the last 20 years.

WHAT THE HELL! is this how my life is going to be? half-hearted incomplete attempts?

That is not what I want. And weight is the easy metaphor, the inadequate metaphor. I have to break through and do things that a 25 year old can’t do.

What would that be? I have some ideas. And they are hard to implement.

But I am not willing to let this be enough. I am not willing to let it be.

I have been battling with self-pity this weekend–this week really. See, I have REALLY GOOD REASONS to feel put upon.

I have been put upon. Isn’t that  good reason to feel frustrated and sorry for myself?

except upon further reflection, I realize

there are never good reasons to feel sorry for myself.

What purpose does it serve? Is it a pain that indicates a needed change in behavior? Then okay, change the behavior. It is only an indicator.

And if the change takes time to implement, the throb should be endured with courage and fortitude, not

self-pity

whining

Because it is an action. I don’t need to be afraid. Afraid is for cowards

Cowards feel very sorry for themselves. I dont want to have something in common with cowardice.

No, it is hard. It is a struggle. But self-pity never did nobody any good.  And it is not something I should indulge in

NEVER MIND HOW VERY RIGHT I AM

That is not the point. THe point is always, what am I going to do about it?

But the present me, the one living in the event which had already taken place, became distracted by the memory of the present.

I used that sentence above to describe the feeling of Deja vu. But I think there is another kind of deja vu.

I find myself doing what I have done, what I have done repeatedly over years and years, responding in destructive ways to the circumstances around me.

The present me, living in the event with has already taken place, goes into the choreograph of dysfunction.

I have said this same yes, accepted the same false accusation, taken the unfair burden many many times before and when this carousel comes round again, I see it and do it again like a a sleepwalker.

But I can choose. I don’t have to vu my deja again. I can be smarter than I have been.