A fine time for changing lanes.
What is a legacy, truly?
How does one tackle the task-strictly in the mind of course-of being remembered?
Is it enough that everything concerned him? The greater hope of that being that one was able to be shaped by the world as much as he shaped it. For better or worse that should be an obligation, at least I would like it to be so.
Would it be best that everyone enjoyed his company, or greater still that everyone sought his counsel? Would it be better that everybody thought him to be just, or just that they counted him as a friend, for better or for worse these two very often are at odds. It is the quiet man who carries the burden of thought most heavy upon the back.
Which should be of more concern in the mean time? The ability to avoid becoming encumbered by the world’s many measures in the short while (even as he is counted upon as a man of regard in the back-rooms of youth) or to become mistaken and confused by the many years that are to follow if the first task at hand is indeed gained (a sort of migration to the estuaries and back-waters of old age)? Subtly, there is a balance, softly he would seek it out; even if he must sacrifice the splendor of the former, or be assuaged less by the sullen bliss that is the latter.
Would it be best that a man stood like a rock in the place given him? Resisting chance and changes as they blow by him, a mile-post by which old friends count. Or is it something greater to have visited all stations in life, and only after having bent your will against the choices you made there, come away stronger, yet not unchanged? Perhaps reliability can never be asked of the rolling stone.
And when it comes time for leaving, long after gray hairs have betrayed a steel nerve, can it be something still to find laughter in the void between grieving and tears? Is there nobility in the remembrance of these fine times now past, or is all that’s left the lamentable end of laughter? There cannot be too much of both; truly, broad shoulders should be as much for consolation as they are for the Herculean labors of youth. The tongue in turn, given thrice as much to wisdom as it is spent in jest. And at that there can never be enough laughter.
Surely, all these are fitting, and at the end of the day, what is left of the man is what he has left of himself; each and every day there is a great ocean of possibility confronting him. And it spans that which we do not know, and that which we are eventually to become. We spend the bulk of our many years adrift, far away from either shore. A mournful, maiden voyage this life is. We become invariably, whatever it is we seek, beings ever-consumed by the light of the future, awed by puffs of smoke just beyond the horizon. One may change course, but one can never turn about, just as you may change your mind, but you can never take it back. Choose wisely friend, a new world awaits.
How does one tackle the task-strictly in the mind of course-of being remembered?
Is it enough that everything concerned him? The greater hope of that being that one was able to be shaped by the world as much as he shaped it. For better or worse that should be an obligation, at least I would like it to be so.
Would it be best that everyone enjoyed his company, or greater still that everyone sought his counsel? Would it be better that everybody thought him to be just, or just that they counted him as a friend, for better or for worse these two very often are at odds. It is the quiet man who carries the burden of thought most heavy upon the back.
Which should be of more concern in the mean time? The ability to avoid becoming encumbered by the world’s many measures in the short while (even as he is counted upon as a man of regard in the back-rooms of youth) or to become mistaken and confused by the many years that are to follow if the first task at hand is indeed gained (a sort of migration to the estuaries and back-waters of old age)? Subtly, there is a balance, softly he would seek it out; even if he must sacrifice the splendor of the former, or be assuaged less by the sullen bliss that is the latter.
Would it be best that a man stood like a rock in the place given him? Resisting chance and changes as they blow by him, a mile-post by which old friends count. Or is it something greater to have visited all stations in life, and only after having bent your will against the choices you made there, come away stronger, yet not unchanged? Perhaps reliability can never be asked of the rolling stone.
And when it comes time for leaving, long after gray hairs have betrayed a steel nerve, can it be something still to find laughter in the void between grieving and tears? Is there nobility in the remembrance of these fine times now past, or is all that’s left the lamentable end of laughter? There cannot be too much of both; truly, broad shoulders should be as much for consolation as they are for the Herculean labors of youth. The tongue in turn, given thrice as much to wisdom as it is spent in jest. And at that there can never be enough laughter.
Surely, all these are fitting, and at the end of the day, what is left of the man is what he has left of himself; each and every day there is a great ocean of possibility confronting him. And it spans that which we do not know, and that which we are eventually to become. We spend the bulk of our many years adrift, far away from either shore. A mournful, maiden voyage this life is. We become invariably, whatever it is we seek, beings ever-consumed by the light of the future, awed by puffs of smoke just beyond the horizon. One may change course, but one can never turn about, just as you may change your mind, but you can never take it back. Choose wisely friend, a new world awaits.
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