Sunday, June 20, 2010

The Wondrous Tapestry of Life

I’ve been thinking about opportunities.

My new bucket list is overflowing with them.  Since I inaugurated the list this year, I’ve confronted several future opportunities, moved them into the present, seized them, savoured them, and celebrated them.  But where do these opportunities go when I’ve ‘ticked them off’?

Then there are the missed opportunities:  those fleeting instants where a word was not spoken, an action not taken.  I liken them to dropped stitches in the tapestry of life.  But what about the tapestry itself?

Over recent weeks, I’ve spent some time admiring my tapestry.  Not focusing on the dropped stitches, but examining the warp and woof of the fabric itself:  the colours and threads that would have been opportunities on bucket lists gone by.

It’s enlightening.

We’re used to displaying our accomplishments for the eye of someone else we’re trying to impress:  be it a college application, a resume sent to a prospective employer, an immigration form, a list of accomplishments for the voters in a club, or in a country.  We apply a filter, “What would they think noteworthy?”  We inflate a few descriptions.

But what if we asked, “What has impressed me about my life so far?  What has made it meaningful and memorable, to me?  Without magnifying it, but just as it was.”  We might even imagine what memories would pass before us if life were ending now.

Maintaining that perspective has been a challenge.  Sometimes I reverted to viewing my memories and accomplishments as I imagined others might see them.  But when I could really let my tapestry glow before my eyes, when I could just sit still and gaze at it for a few minutes, it gave me new insights on what was really important to me now – and what might be worth striving for in the future.

It’s an unexpected mixture of patterns and colours, that tapestry.  There are opportunities that I chose, and some that chose me.  Some of those didn’t look like opportunities at the time.  Some took decades to bring to fruition; others came and went in a heartbeat.  Some might look impressive to others.  Some have meaning only to me.  There are places where the colours are as vivid as the day I lived them.  Other regions are so faded that I can no longer make out the design – not today, anyway.  Another day, I expect to see whole patterns that I’ve yet to notice.

In a recent article, Steve Pavlina said, “If you want to know where your current path is taking you, look to your past.”  He got me thinking.  My past has been pretty amazing.  If my future holds more like that, I’m up for it.

What did I learn from this exercise?  Life is good – the tapestry is worth weaving.  I can try to drop fewer stitches:  speak those words, take that action.  I can investigate new colours, plan new designs:  add something exciting to that bucket list.

And sometimes I just need to hang the fabric on the wall and let it brighten the room.

References

·        The Past DOES Equal the Future” by Steve Pavlina
·        My Bucket List (when it was four weeks old)

101 Things that have made Life so-far worth Living

I prepared the following list while thinking about my Bucket List, and the tapestry of my life.  It became the grist for my article, “The Wondrous Tapestry of Life”.  The original idea for this exercise came from reading "50 Things I’ve Already Done" by Marelisa Fábrega.  (Marelisa also had some of the best advice on creating a bucket list.)
The list is far from complete.  New items are still being added.  But these items made an impression:
  • Was born to loving parents, in an extended family with a rich sense of its history, tales and characters.  My extended family has been a key part of my life ever since.
  • Can remember countless memories of being awed by the world around me – by clouds roiling in the sky, or the airplane sailing through them;  of the sounds of insects on a summer day, or a grandfather clock’s ticking competing with the winter rains outside.
  • At the age of nine, I earned my first real money selling tropical fish I'd raised to the nearby 15-cent store – now called a dollar store, adjusting for inflation.
  • Hiked to the incredible Skookum Chuck tidal rapids, before there was a park or trail
  • Had many other adventures as a kid, including sailing down the beach on a raft powered by a sheet, sending a fish up in a kite – and releasing it alive, and constructing a candle-powered hot-air balloon – and not burning down the forest.
  • Together with cousins, built several kids’ forts, even one with a secret room, accessed by an underground passage.
  • Traveled across North America several times by both train and car, including via the unpaved Alaska Highway to Whitehorse and beyond.
  • Wrote my first computer program – in 1966 – and co-produced an eight-minute movie dramatization of the dangers of excessive automation, at the age of 15.
  • Managed to place second out of almost 6000 in a high-school mathematics contest, and received honourable mention in a second one
  • Spent 10 long and glorious childhood summers in a beachfront cottage on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast – what a wonderful opportunity to live in a place that moved me.
  • Visited the World’s Fair in 1967.
  • As a youth myself, helped create and run a youth-based “coffee house” with weekly entertainment such as poetry readings and local folk-singers.
  • Crossed a giant underground lake by boat
  • Ran away from high-school to “join a monastery in Argentina”, ... but returned to graduate after getting as far as the Caribbean.
  • Gave up TV in my teens, and have never really watched it since.  We raised our kids without it.
  • Volunteered as a DJ on a campus radio station, playing classical and world music – in the 60s.
  • Once went over five days with no food and only water, just to see what it was like.  Now, I know.
  • Searched for uranium in the muskeg of the Far North in the company of a grizzled old prospector full of tall tales.
  • Survived being stranded overnight and underdressed on a large frozen lake in subzero temperatures, while the Aurora Borealis danced enticingly overhead – a night I will never forget.
  • Fell through lake ice and lived to tell of it.
  • Flew day after day in a door-less helicopter with a crazy ex-recon pilot who still thought he was flying over the jungles of Vietnam.
  • Survived being trapped by a forest fire for two days in a small remote bush camp full of dynamite and jet fuel.  The fuel, our little camp and its denizens were saved by our relentless campaign against the sparks that blew over and rained down on us in the smoke.
  • Flew as “bombardier” in the classic Beaver seaplane, water-bombing other forest fires.
  • Worked as an automobile test-driver.
  • Got the highest undergrad average in my university.  Wrote the first 100% paper ever in my physics course, earning a personal letter from the prof.
  • Sang tenor in a German folk choir -- “Ein Jaeger aus Kurpfalz, der reitet durch den gruenen Wald, ...”
  • Worked a summer as a German-speaking waiter in a Bavarian guest-house, and didn't speak English all summer (except to assist with two medical emergencies).  One highlight was being mistaken for a “Bavarian” by a group of German diners.
  • Went to Italy for lunch (but only from Germany.)
  • Stood almost alone on the windswept podium of Hitler's reviled stadium in Nuremberg, and looked out over the vast greyness.
  • Crossed the Berlin Wall at “Checkpoint Charlie” – both ways – at the height of the Cold War, ... after spending the night before staring over the Wall while an escaped border guard told me how hard it was to get over.  (After the Wall came down, I named one of my sons after Freedom.)
  • Triumphed over the instructor in a contest to have a computer calculate the most prime numbers in the least amount of time.
  • Worked in the lab at a sewage treatment facility, and in an oil refinery – both were fascinating.
  • Was invited to create and teach an introduction to Austrian economics to activists in a federal political party.
  • Ran for Federal Member of Parliament – most unsuccessfully, likely for the best – and twice more for provincial representative, also with minimal success.  Have been interviewed on national TV on this and several other occasions.
  • Danced the samba in the street with 1.5 million Brazilians in Rio's carnival – dressed as the bearded lady, and protected by two enthusiastic young women.
  • Flew through the edge of a tornado while on a commercial flight.  There were many praying that day.
  • Married a  wonderful woman who didn't speak English and who I met while traveling – and learned her language over the next six years.
  • Became president of a great Toastmasters club.
  • Planted several thousand trees while living on a country acreage, and then went back to see the forest groves 30 years later.
  • Learned to snow-ski, water-ski, cross-country ski, snowshoe, ride a snowmobile, drive a half-track, paddle a kayak and canoe, row a skiff as well as a dinghy, sail, sailboard, body-surf, forecast the weather, cook from scratch, play chess, and play the piano, though perhaps none of them all that well – but the wonder is that I did them at all.
  • Managed the research and development operations of an early pioneer in minicomputers.
  • Traveled to another country to participate in a self-development group run by a psychologist I admired.
  • Worked with top-notch teams on a wide range of computer applications including application development platforms, communications processors, computer language development, geophysics, internet applications & virtual communities, multilingual systems, musical synthesizers, negotiation & game theory, operating systems, optimization problems, physics research, and processor emulation.
  • Rewrote one company's floating-point emulator to surpass the benchmarks for IBM's version, many times over – always fun to tweak a giant’s nose, even if they giant doesn’t notice.
  • Immigrated to Australia – then moved back across the world a few years later.
  • Saw penguins in the wild, though not yet in Antarctica.
  • Drove across the Nullarbor Plain en route from Sydney to Perth, Australia.
  • Camped in below-zero weather and drove through a blizzard in Australia’s Snowy Mountains.
  • Drove around Tasmania and the South Island of New Zealand, both places that seemed like the “end of the world” in a delicious sort of way.
  • Lived for several years on Narabeen surf beach in Australia, and routinely boogie-boarded before breakfast.
  • Learned to swim the butterfly stroke in my 30s, and then placed in the state Masters' games.
  • Did the 28-day Outward Bound course in the Queensland rainforest – with a special “old guy” dispensation – and climbed the highest mountain in the State.
  • Spent three days and nights totally alone and stranded on a nameless tropical island in the Coral Sea, fishing like Friday in the hot sun to supplement my ration of flour and oranges.
  • Saw Mozart's Magic Flute in the Sydney Opera House.
  • Was part of the team that created the world’s first online banking system to run entirely on PCs – even before Windows 3.1.
  • Planted a whole field of wildflowers – and my old neighbours still pick them.
  • Was an active participant with my wife in the births of both of our sons.  I can still remember singing to them face-to-face for the first time.
  • Created a home on a wooded acreage on a small island community, and lived there with my family for several years.
  • Sailed on a three-masted tall ship between the islands of the Caribbean.
  • Went scuba diving on a reef in the British Virgin Islands.
  • Have been proud to be independent and not an unwelcome financial burden on my fellow citizens – was the subject of a nationwide editorial for my efforts over many years to avoid taking money from the government.
  • Founded an organization working for political reform and made in-person submissions to government committees;  have been a member, supporter and occasional officer in a dozen or more similar organizations supporting peace and individual liberty around the world.  Have underwritten a large part of the founder’s salary on more than one occasion.
  • Have hosted many interesting travelers from around the world, including one young man from Russia who claimed to have brought Boris Yeltsin a satellite phone during a standoff with the Soviet army.
  • Helped develop a 750-acre island recreation property, including resolving the problem of allocating individual lots among almost a score of partners.
  • Co-founded and helped run a successful Internet consulting company for almost ten years.  Helped several clients achieve their business dreams.
  • Helped build and run the technology for the world's largest Internet job board for the travel and tourism industry
  • Stood naked in the sun with arms outstretched at the top of my island acreage – now that was a rush!
  • Played frisbee on Grande Saline beach on St. Barths.
  • Wrote an unpublished short story which earned me a dinner invite with an award-winning author.
  • Designed and commissioned a waterfront cottage on 65 forested acres on an unserviced island, and summered there with my family for seven years.
  • Owned and operated a “classic” cabin cruiser.
  • Helped produce one of the early Internet virtual communities – in the days long before Web 2.0.
  • Ran one of Canada’s most extensive anti-war Internet sites during NATO’s 1999 war on Serbia.  Mentored and assisted other international peace & freedom sites.
  • Became conversant in three foreign languages:  German, Portuguese, Spanish.
  • Took the family – our boys aged nine and 12 – on a half-year meandering adventure around the back roads of Costa Rica.
  • Zip-lined through a Costa Rican forest, mimicking the flight of the toucan.
  • White-water rafted down a Class Four Costa Rican river with my nine-year-old son – he still thinks we were crazy, … and maybe we were.  (I thought the road trip home was more dangerous.)
  • Was swarmed and chased by African killer bees along with my young sons in a mangrove swamp – and we all escaped relatively unscathed.
  • Snorkeled with turtles, stingrays, octopus, barracudas, monk seals, and a bazillion fish.
  • Have seen in the wild:  grizzly bears, a wolf pack, moose, peccaries, crocodiles, howler monkeys, cassowaries, poison-dart frogs, the great green macaw, the beautiful quetzal, kangaroos, goannas & iguanas, humpback whales, and a ton of other animals.
  • Stood on recent lava flows and watched the eruption of two of the most active volcanoes in the world, Costa Rica's Mt. Arenal and Hawaii's Mt. Kilauea.
  • Had an article on reactions to “September 11” published on a well-regarded anti-war site, republished by Pravda Online, with follow-up on talk radio in Kentucky.
  • Played an active role in parenting our two boys.  Together we made life work so that we were always available to them.
  • Participated in running a Montessori school for 15 years, so that my children could have an education that also excited me
  • Was invited by a well-known author to help review a parenting book in progress.
  • Was present at the dignified and peaceful deaths of each of my parents – was lucky enough to be impressed with how they lived their lives, even to the end.
  • Saved the life of at least one someone close to me.
  • Learned to manage my own chronic back problems, and to cope with tinnitus.
  • Have come close to achieving financial independence.  Along the way, have worked and invested in several start-ups, lost money on most, traded stock options and fielded margin calls, got into debt and learned how to get out and stay out.
  • Took salsa and Latin percussion lessons in private homes in Santiago de Cuba.
  • Cycled a beautiful stretch of British Columbia's Kettle Valley rail, and a number of other rides.
  • Watched wild killer whales dive under our kayaks from only a few feet away – the boys got the closest view as the orcas stared up at them from under the icy water.
  • Sailed on a yacht between a number of Greek Islands.
  • Visited the ruins of the ancient Greek Island city of Delos, birthplace of Apollo.
  • Climbed the Acropolis of Athens, and a Mayan pyramid.
  • Hitched a ride on a dolphin.
  • Snorkeled in an underground cenote.
  • Participated in a great men’s group.
  • Have kept my good health long enough to have done all this, and well enough to anticipate many more adventures.  Lost 35 pounds quickly when I needed to.
  • Soared in a vivid blue sky over rivers, hills and valleys in the front of a fixed-wing glider – and didn’t even have to touch my ‘chute.
  • Visited over 400 towns and cities in 20 countries on four different continents.
  • Have read thousands of great books.  Authors that have affected me include Albert Einstein, Alexandre Dumas, Ayn Rand, Edward de Bono, Ernest Hemingway, Isaac Asimov, James P. Hogan, Jean Auel, Ludwig von Mises, Maria Montessori, Murray Rothbard, Nathaniel Branden, Rafael Sabatini, Robert Heinlein, Spider Robinson, and Victor Hugo.
  • Count myself lucky to have many friends – and a few very good friends, several of whom I’ve known for 30 years or more.
  • Had quite a few adventures too ex-rated for polite company, … and too delicious to forget.
  • Found love a few times, and True Love once.
  • Have been married to a fantastic woman for 27 years, one who did many of these things with me, and who still turns me on.  And I never settled for less.
  • Raised two young men who are now making their way in the world, and who also did a number of these things with me.  These years engendered countless other special stories, but perhaps they more properly belong in their life histories.
  • What's next? The Bucketeer's List

References