self-entertain

Flowers in a garden, originally uploaded by gurdonark.

I never have had a taste for cigarettes, alcohol, controlled substances or latte. I used to have quite a taste for chocolate, but I tempered my intake in light of its fat content. I am not particularly prone to the endorphin adrenaline rush of adventure. Like most people, my life involves a great deal more Walter Mitty than Amelia Earheart.

I am firmly in the camp of people who find immense comfort in a good book, a flowering garden, and a simple train ride.
I do not hunt for the local deer and doves, but enjoy seeing doves and house sparrows at the feeder in our backyard. I like a good walk on an easy trail. I am as transported by the sight of a 3,500 foot high mountain as if I had climbed a 10,000 foot high mountain. For that mattter, I'm transported by the rolling vistas of spreading prairie.

People speak of lost arts, and re-discovering ways to do things once common and now rare. I'm not an expert at any of those. Yet I find that a key lost art is the lost art of the ability to self-entertain: to find contentment in one's own company. I don't mean to "be an island", because the quote about how "no man is an island" is so pithy that it might as well be treated as true. I mean instead the ability for one to do or not do something, and still find life immensely entertaining.

There are a number of small-town virtues perhaps best left to small-town living. One small-town virtue, though, deserves export. In a small town, it is understood that in some ways "there is nothing to do". One must therefore learn to self-entertain. I am always amused by the perpetual truth of the young that "there is nothing to do in this town", ever since I heard one young fellow say this to another young fellow in the midst of a crowded mall in Los Angeles. in small towns, though, when there is indeed a smaller array of things to do, people find great comfort in doing things and enjoying them. The library is not taken for granted, but a lifeline. Appreciating nature and one's garden is another lifeline. Crafting is not a frivolous pursuit, but a necessity. Community activities and even sports are not a local affectation, but a local necessity.

I see it all as the abilty to self-entertain. If I could give people a gift, I think I'd give the gift to find contentment within oneself. It's as good as chocolate, and less fattening.

Personal imperfections

1. My instinctive reaction to silence is to assume that I have given smoldering offense. When I am right in this assumption, it reinforces a global mental rule, giving rise to imprecise analysis.
2. I often know the log in my eye that is preventing me from seeing things clearly, but I just get so used to the splintered astigmatism that I become comfortable with the view.
3. I tend to think of myself as a B class blitz chess player who inexplicably plays like a C class blitz chess player. After 7,000 games in the C class, it is time to accept that how I play is what gives me a 1400 rating rather than a 1600 rating.
4. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then I wonder what quirky limbo is surfaced with the seashells of half-formed daydreams.
5. When I browsed "the 50 worst rock and roll songs of all time" book, I found that I love many of them.
I took an un-natural pride in having a kind of personal "Manhattan" moment, wishing to tell the authors how I love all those songs. I want to write an essay about "Unforgettable Fire", defending it.
6. I love good conversation--and thus should reach out more to initiate it.
7. For a person whose professional success depends in part upon an ability to negotiate with tact,
my personal life can involve some tactless comments--especially on the internet.
8. A corollary to 7 is that I like brash, assertive people. Yet my skin is sometimes unduly thin. This may be relative, however--gradations of crocodile luggage.
9. I could write a biography with Edward Hopper super-realism called "Exquisite Details of Times I have made a Fool of Myself".
10. My delight is a kind of mental analytical organization, which is sadly accompanied by few inklings of any physical space organization.