A Rain of Frogs

Do you have a list? I do.

It’s longer than my arm. Longer than both my arms. And its not double-spaced, either.

It’s a list of all the things I want to (or need to!) get done. It is an interesting list, which runs the gamut from something as involved (the sublime) as obtaining Slovenian citizenship to washing the boat (the ridiculous).

The list includes carpentry, it includes programming, it includes editing of the written word and learning of new songs and the sewing of sail bags.

I look at this list, and I think it cripples me. Then I realize I’m fooling myself, and really I’ve just been lazy. Not even lazy in a negative sense. I’ve just been idling – sitting still and watching the wheels go round and round.

Slowly (ever so slowly!) I’ve been easing the clutch out, letting it catch and giving myself a jolt of fuel to keep from stalling out. I’ve got some of the things on my list done lately, and moving on toward more tick-marks.

I’ve written about this before, but from the other side. From the idling side. It feels good to awaken and see the dawn, see the promise of a brand new day ahead of me.

It’s even nicer to not think “Oh god, not another one” as I face the sunrise.

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.”

- R. Buckminster Fuller

Long-time readers here are aware of the numerous quotes on the left side of this website. If you only ever access the site by RSS, I highly recommend giving them a look through. There is some very inspirational stuff there, in my opinion.

Which is why I have them there, I guess.

Of all of them, I think the quote above is my most favorite. It is the one that my mind continually iterates through, finding deeper and deeper meaning.

Maybe I’m just nuts.

What if some day, when you’re old and grey, an angel appeared to you. An angel. Or an alien. Time traveller from the future. God, or whatever.

What if someone appeared to you later in your life, and gave you the opportunity to go back and change something in your past?

What if you had a chance to go back and not drop out of university? A chance to go back and go skydiving with your friends, instead of letting fear cage you. A chance to go back and make sure you run over Kiefer Sutherland while pulling out of the Delta Chelsea parking lot?

Would you go back? It’s scary to think about. You’d be going back and changing everything. You might not even be the same person you are because you’ve gone back and changed the events that made you.

What if we padded this mental exercise a bit? Say this angel – or alien, time traveller, god, etc. according to belief and/or preference – let you see the results of your change, so you could make your decision with an easy mind. This being would let you see, and you’d make your decision, and then you forget the results, and go back and live that part of your life over – a chance to make that decision differently. That’d be a whole different ball game.

What if that already happened to you in the future, and this is you, back here right now for a chance to sally forth boldly and stretch your life to fit around your unbounded imagination?

Seriously. What do you want out of life?

Sail around the world, live on a boat? Be a beach bum? Drop off the corporate ladder and sell paintings in some tourist trap? Busk in Paris? Backpack from Paris to Hong Kong?

All these things sound exotic and interesting, and some people really do get out there and actually do it. They step away from the norms of society and blaze their own trail, and in general, we praise their courage.

In general.

But not in the specific. In the specific, those people are probably dealing with a lot of criticism. When he calls from Provence, worried mothers ask their busker son if he’s ever going to grow up, come back and get a job, like normal people. Friends and fathers worry about that artist in cottage country – how is she going to heat her run-down shack when the season ends and the snow replaces Bermuda shorts and sun hats?

We pay lip service to the general concept, but societal inertia stops us from following our hearts. Time and again, the elderly tell us to follow our hearts, to live and explore and dream and be ourselves. To hell with the worry and criticism. Go do your own thing. After all, you’re the only one who has to wake up every morning and live your life. And time and again, we ignore this most true, most profound, most heartfelt advice and trade our dreams for a shinier car that doesn’t get us to the job we really don’t like any faster in rush hour traffic.

It’s a tired old saw, but its tired because its so true. Think you’ll lay on your deathbed and wish you had worked more? Got just one more promotion? Had a house with one more toilet to scrub?

If you could remove all the filters, operate without fear of criticism of your actions, what would you aspire to? What would you do, if you no longer had to worry about how others would judge you?

The Anglo Saxon druids called it Thingtide. Most people call it the Summer Solstice. I call it fantastic.

The sun rose today at 5:36am (here in Toronto) and will set at 9:03pm tonight making for a 15 hour 26 minute and 44 second day, two second longer than yesterday and two second longer than tomorrow.

The actual Solstice – when the apparent position of the sun is highest in the year- officially occurs at 6:06pm (GMT) today. This marks the official start of Summer so get out there and enjoy the rays!