I haven’t updated this particular blog in several days because of what I wrote here. Had to take my own advice on a few things and think about what I said.
Thought about some things I wrote down elsewhere and considered whether I was waiting for it to be read or not.
In concept you could say I was working on a premise you can call the intersection of timing and opportunity. The idea was that you could set things in motion so that when the timing was right you could move on a particular opportunity.
It sounds and feels good but it chaps my hide because there is also reason for people to advocate for themselves and make their own luck.
If you heard me say I am more fun than a hairbrush there is a reference there to past events and not to intelligence or anything else.
Thought about a bunch of things because of a movie I saw and the memories it stirred up. Some of them were good, some bad and some in between.
It was the rough moments that got my attention because I could still taste and feel some of that. You might ask if that means I didn’t get over or beyond it and I would shake my head.
I survived because it is what I do and who I am but you can’t be a writer without being able to tap into some of that stuff.
The Intersection Of Timing & Opportunity
As I wandered through the past and present it got me thinking about whether I have ever stuck my arm into a fire and smiled because the answer is yes, I have jumped headfirst into it.
Because the intersection of timing and opportunity isn’t perfect and sometimes you have to move forward and see what lies around the bend.
What people misunderstand is that seeing what lies around the bend doesn’t mean you have to go live there immediately.
Sometimes it is nothing more than reconnaissance so that you can determine if it is a place to visit or a place to love.
Sometimes you go visit on multiple occasions because what you think or thought may change but you know that if you don’t explore you cannot and will not rest.
That is a hard thing for people to do because it requires a mix of honesty and vulnerability that some don’t want to give up.
A younger gentleman asked me if I could define and or explain it and I looked at him and said I use the following.
“What would you do if someone died and you had no ability to engage with them in the sort of way you can with the living. If you had to call someone in an emergency who do you keep on that list.”
Sometimes when people talk about this kind of thing they refer to the clip below from The Town which isn’t bad but it has thrown some people who get lost because they take it too literally.
It is not about having people who will help you hurt others or hide bodies. It is about having people who you can have true naked honesty with.
It is knowing you can lay out whatever is prickly and dangerous to your heart and soul as well as the body.
Anyhoo, when this younger guy and I spoke he asked what a guy in his fifties knows that a thirty something doesn’t.
When I spelled out my answer I followed up by telling him that someday may never come and that time moves faster than any of us think.
He had the good sense not to be a smart ass like me and say we all get 24 hours in a day. That is true, those of you who have a little more life experience will likely agree with me that it feels like it speeds up as you age.
You may be lucky to enjoy good health your entire life or you may wake up and discover that what you had is gone or less than it once was.
If you are smart you’ll take advantage of what you have while you can because that intersection doesn’t always come like you think or hope.
Or maybe it does, maybe something you thought about in your thirties reappears down the road and you get to take another swing.
Some describe life as being a sort of spiral staircase in which you have the opportunity to revisit experiences from multiple places upon the staircase.
Kind of an interesting thought seeing things multiple times from multiple perspectives.
