BY STEVE JANOSKI
I was never fond of the idea of a “bucket list.”
In my eyes it was a pretentious sort of thing to write down things that you determine you must, beyond all reasonable doubt, do before you die, or else you would declare all your years a waste.
Either do the things or don't, but posting your list on your refrigerator door like Martin Luther with one of your kid's animal magnets seems insincere at best.
Death, of course, has a way of changing things, and breaking down my innate cynicism I've worked so hard to sharpen, and so two weeks ago, as I looked over my grandfather's laid-out corpse, I couldn't help but feel a tingle of my own mortality.
It happens every time I go to a funeral, and that's why I avoid those functions as much as possible.
But even as I took in the sight of him lying in a casket, there wasn't that sense of overwhelming regret and destructive sorrow- he was 84 years-old, and had lived a long life that was truly, and in every sense of the word, worth living.
Born in 1926, he was a part of what's been called the “Greatest Generation,” having signed up with the Navy at the tender age of 17 in 1944. He was promptly sent to the Pacific Theater, where he was part of the crew of a PBY Catalina, the “flying boat” type plane that could land on water.
The PBY was often used as a sub-hunter in the Pacific, and although the details of the engagements were left out, an eager energy would trace across his old eyes when he recalled the adventure of those days.
During one of those missions, his head was grazed by a .50 bullet that barely missed- one inch the other way, and this writer wouldn't be here.
Over the course of the war the years immediately after, he was stationed across both America and the South Pacific, and by the age of 22, he'd seen more of the world than most of my generation will see in their entire lives.
Being a young man watching these old lions die brings home the reality that no matter how long life seems, it is truly a harrowingly short ride that should be enjoyed with the most intensity that can be drawn from each breath.
So recently, as a way of keeping my intentions straight- you guessed it- I'm beginning to write up a bucket list. I'm not going to call it that, because I still think it's a ridiculous term, but I've admitted that there are certain things that I've thought about doing but had considered out of my reach for one reason or another.
Unlike the movie, I'm not going sky-diving, because I still can't figure out why someone would want to jump out of a plane that isn't falling as fast as they are.
However, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro? Absolutely. I've gotten into the outdoors much more in the last few years, and summiting Hemingway's legendary conquest would be a story worth living myself.
I'd like to take a boat down the Amazon River, because the sheer natural brutality of that region has captured my imagination for years.
One day, I'd like to stand at the Straits of Gibraltar, and then later on that day, get drunk at a bar that lies at edge of the Mediterranean Sea.
There are many journeys I plan on embarking on, and with my natural tendency to seek out the worst people and seediest parts of wherever I am, I'm sure they'll be interesting.
This way, when I'm done living this life, I'll be able to say that I made it all worth it, and lived a life that the wild men of the world would look on with approval after some producer makes a movie out of it decades from now.
As one man I know often says, “It's better to wear out than rust out.”
There could be no better motto for anyone's life.
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!" - Hunter S. Thompson
I was never fond of the idea of a “bucket list.”
In my eyes it was a pretentious sort of thing to write down things that you determine you must, beyond all reasonable doubt, do before you die, or else you would declare all your years a waste.
Either do the things or don't, but posting your list on your refrigerator door like Martin Luther with one of your kid's animal magnets seems insincere at best.
Death, of course, has a way of changing things, and breaking down my innate cynicism I've worked so hard to sharpen, and so two weeks ago, as I looked over my grandfather's laid-out corpse, I couldn't help but feel a tingle of my own mortality.
It happens every time I go to a funeral, and that's why I avoid those functions as much as possible.
But even as I took in the sight of him lying in a casket, there wasn't that sense of overwhelming regret and destructive sorrow- he was 84 years-old, and had lived a long life that was truly, and in every sense of the word, worth living.
Born in 1926, he was a part of what's been called the “Greatest Generation,” having signed up with the Navy at the tender age of 17 in 1944. He was promptly sent to the Pacific Theater, where he was part of the crew of a PBY Catalina, the “flying boat” type plane that could land on water.
The PBY was often used as a sub-hunter in the Pacific, and although the details of the engagements were left out, an eager energy would trace across his old eyes when he recalled the adventure of those days.
During one of those missions, his head was grazed by a .50 bullet that barely missed- one inch the other way, and this writer wouldn't be here.
Over the course of the war the years immediately after, he was stationed across both America and the South Pacific, and by the age of 22, he'd seen more of the world than most of my generation will see in their entire lives.
Being a young man watching these old lions die brings home the reality that no matter how long life seems, it is truly a harrowingly short ride that should be enjoyed with the most intensity that can be drawn from each breath.
So recently, as a way of keeping my intentions straight- you guessed it- I'm beginning to write up a bucket list. I'm not going to call it that, because I still think it's a ridiculous term, but I've admitted that there are certain things that I've thought about doing but had considered out of my reach for one reason or another.
Unlike the movie, I'm not going sky-diving, because I still can't figure out why someone would want to jump out of a plane that isn't falling as fast as they are.
However, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro? Absolutely. I've gotten into the outdoors much more in the last few years, and summiting Hemingway's legendary conquest would be a story worth living myself.
I'd like to take a boat down the Amazon River, because the sheer natural brutality of that region has captured my imagination for years.
One day, I'd like to stand at the Straits of Gibraltar, and then later on that day, get drunk at a bar that lies at edge of the Mediterranean Sea.
There are many journeys I plan on embarking on, and with my natural tendency to seek out the worst people and seediest parts of wherever I am, I'm sure they'll be interesting.
This way, when I'm done living this life, I'll be able to say that I made it all worth it, and lived a life that the wild men of the world would look on with approval after some producer makes a movie out of it decades from now.
As one man I know often says, “It's better to wear out than rust out.”
There could be no better motto for anyone's life.
No comments:
Post a Comment