What do I want?

"What do I want"?

The great question everyone grapples with. At least, the great question everyone who didn't become the thing they wanted to be as a child grapples with.

I'm not an NHL goalie, so here we are.

What do I want?

In our world of late, disorganized capitalism we like to think of this as a personal question, removed from social context or cultural influence.

That, of course, is absurd.

Nothing is removed from society and culture, even if they are removed from each other. I have a family. I have a partner and kids and jobs and commitments that preclude some of my more ridiculous dreams. Reality also precludes some of those dreams, but that is not what I'm talking about.

The better question is: What do I want, given the circumstances of my life and the outcomes that are in the realm of plausible.  Within these confines many of us find possibilities, probabilities and freedom from the tyranny of cultural aspirations.

I want to teach and write.

I also want to be a secret agent, ninja, NHL goalie, John Wick style assassin-poet.

But mostly I want to teach and write.

Both of those things reveal my truth to the world.

In teaching I am in control of a room in a way I normally cannot be. I am a fucking disaster at a cocktail party. I am shit at small talk and can't easily enter or remove myself from trivial discussions. I always go for the deeper meaning. I always try to look behind the curtain.

I am always interested in your truth, even if you are not.

I also like to write about that disconnect. I like to explore the world from the safety of my keyboard. I see the world as deep and interesting and a series of objects to be engaged. But, I only see this from a distance. In the face of complexity and difference and tension I walk away. I don't do well in the moment. I reflect well.

I wish I reflected beautifully.

On occasion I do. Usually I miss. But, I endeavor to bridge the gap between learning, seeking, understanding and teaching. I do that as a job. I want to do that as a living.

I want to teach and write. 

You Be You

Life is a fight between who you are, who you were and who you want to be.

In other words, Dickens had the right idea. Except who you are spends too much time appeasing who you were in the age of twitter, Instagram and online ruminations. Put otherwise, the ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is waging a losing battle.

Maybe life is a losing battle. Everyday we hope, we do and we repeat. At the end of very few days are we happy with the result.

Why?

We suck.

Kinda True.

Said better, we project yesterday into tomorrow and the results are terrible. We should care about the future, but we too often care about now soothing our before.

We appease our present selves, in opposition to what our future selves want.

We suck.

We suck time from our future and use it to soothe our past and present.

We ruminate. We regurgitate. We replay.

We plan poorly. We execute worse.

I don't really have a point.

We suck.

Let's try and suck less.

Let's try and be who we want to be, while being who we are and honouring who we were.

Life is a complex game of remembering and forgetting. Let's remember what we need to, forget what hurts too bad and play with possibilities of tomorrow.

Or, let's just drink and forget. Either works in the moment.

But, as I've hinted at, moments are both the answer and a trap.

You be you, today, yesterday and tomorrow.

Please.