Things Big and Small
Lots of things running around in my head these days, some pleasant, some not so. This one is pretty ordinary and might be considered a late in life thought. I am amazed at how many accomplished people I know, people who can do things like read Hebrew or Greek and are fluent in French or German, who have actually read the great books and can quote them. People who know seriously well how computers work, and cars, and had incredible numbers on their SATs and ACTs. I know people who have worked for presidents, played professional sports, lived in foreign countries, run big companies, and climbed all the highest points in this country.
As for me Paradise Lost was a struggle as was Moby Dick. I read War and Peace, but don’t get me lying about my favorite part of the story. Dickens? Yes. His contemporaries? No. Victorian literature? Boo. I liked the painters and artists, Rossetti, Whistler, Morris, and Beardsley. I took two years of Latin in high school. Two years of German in college. The result? I can pay attention in Mass and order two glasses of water in German and count pretty high. One of my favorite classes in college was one they called kitchen physics because it consisted of reprints from Scientific American. I still have them, and it’s why I know about the Pauli Principle or Heisenberg’s uncertainty theory. I can say nice to meet you in Japanese.
It’s not that I’m unhappy with my life. On the contrary, I’m loving it. Partly because of all of the above. And it’s nice to be in a position where you can talk to people about their lives and wonder at all they’ve done, both big and small, and appreciate it and call them friends. It certainly makes for a richer existence. But it also pays to know they won’t put any of that on my tombstone or anyone else’s, most likely it will be something like loving father, mother, brother or sister which might be a clue as to what’s really important.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale