Getting off your rock
So it's Cake Day, and I'm 27 now. Also, and perhaps more importantly, as of about two weeks ago I'm also Master of Arts (that being the natural outcome of having finished one's Dread Thesis), so there's that too.
For some vague reason, popular culture has enshrined 27 as the age at which people reach the zenith of their sociocultural value. All the coolest people, of course, will then perish, having already accomplished more than all the average peons destined to lead boring and uninteresting lives of drudgery. The intended lesson, as I understand it, is that once you leave behind 27, you ought to have figured out that your window of opportunity to pursue all your childish dreams and aspirations has finally closed, so you might as well give up and settle into whatever passes for "normal life" these days.
Well. An unusual and amusingly symbolic thing happened yesterday. On the route of my usual jogging path there's a nice, sizeable rock that I'd every so often climb up and sit upon, either to catch my breath or, I suppose, gaze wistfully out to the sea or something to that effect. It really is a very nice rock, though. Well, for several years now a tree had been looming over it, and yesterday when I went there, I discovered that the tree had fallen down right on top of that rock.
No, really. It did. Like so.
Aside of serving a nice scoopful of fresh mortality over the notion that a tree of considerable size had randomly fallen right on top of a place where I would sit with alarming regularity, this occurance might also be read as some manner of divine commentary on the virtues of getting out of your funk and off your lazy behind and actually doing some of those things you've been planning on doing for ages now, but didn't, because ostensibly you had something more important to do. Like writing your thesis, say. That excuse, alas, is permanently out of date now.
There is no such thing as magic numbers, and it's also sadly unlikely that any omnipotent will of the universe is actually making trees fall down for the benefit of my personal development. Still, I'll only be twenty-seven for a year. So I might as well make the most out of it, right?
For some vague reason, popular culture has enshrined 27 as the age at which people reach the zenith of their sociocultural value. All the coolest people, of course, will then perish, having already accomplished more than all the average peons destined to lead boring and uninteresting lives of drudgery. The intended lesson, as I understand it, is that once you leave behind 27, you ought to have figured out that your window of opportunity to pursue all your childish dreams and aspirations has finally closed, so you might as well give up and settle into whatever passes for "normal life" these days.
Well. An unusual and amusingly symbolic thing happened yesterday. On the route of my usual jogging path there's a nice, sizeable rock that I'd every so often climb up and sit upon, either to catch my breath or, I suppose, gaze wistfully out to the sea or something to that effect. It really is a very nice rock, though. Well, for several years now a tree had been looming over it, and yesterday when I went there, I discovered that the tree had fallen down right on top of that rock.
No, really. It did. Like so.
Aside of serving a nice scoopful of fresh mortality over the notion that a tree of considerable size had randomly fallen right on top of a place where I would sit with alarming regularity, this occurance might also be read as some manner of divine commentary on the virtues of getting out of your funk and off your lazy behind and actually doing some of those things you've been planning on doing for ages now, but didn't, because ostensibly you had something more important to do. Like writing your thesis, say. That excuse, alas, is permanently out of date now.
There is no such thing as magic numbers, and it's also sadly unlikely that any omnipotent will of the universe is actually making trees fall down for the benefit of my personal development. Still, I'll only be twenty-seven for a year. So I might as well make the most out of it, right?