But then it might just be me. It’s been a long time, or at least it seems so, since I’ve managed to get away from the housework and retirement to write much, or even play around with the blogs HTML script. I always had fun changing things around by using the editor provided, but actually typing in the code and watching pictures change size or position, and other things move and morph, that was really good fun. I even invested in a thick book named “Complete HTML”, as if anything is ever complete.
Like all those people who constructed and wrote the blogs which we see floating around the web from time to time untended, I too found myself unable to forge ahead uninterrupted. Those apparently lost and lonely pages aimed at fame or fortune or even more importantly, adventure, which for one reason or another became abandoned with last post dates long gone, almost had a new companion.
For me though, it seems I have to keep putting things down on paper, just like on my lists. Ideas float around almost every moment, and not just those waking ones, but unless I write them down they disappear as new thoughts enter my limited storage space. I wish I had one of those memories that accumulate thoughts with no apparent boundaries or limits, mine is like RAM while running Photoshop, frequently insufficient. Plenty of people not ardent readers, have said to me “Get a life” I always reply “Don’t confuse me, I think I have one here somewhere.”
Since retirement chased me from my first love, “Work”, as some call it, or as I referred to it, “Challenge”, I’ve had to broaden my view of "important". That view always included family and friends within the important umbrella, but not much else, and sometimes not enough of them. When first retired, time was all over the place, I just had to pick it up and put it somewhere. Ventures into directions I hadn’t considered of use to me in the past, suddenly became all consuming of time and thought, not to mention money. The blog was one of those ventures, it led to an interest in the code involved, which led to study of that, and other things I came across as a result of people I met on the web investigating this and that, etc, etc, etc. A real snowball effect. I’ve met many retired people now, they all have the same problem, not enough time.
So I decided to attempt to do a little more with less, concentrate on fewer activities but spend the extra time on each of them. To some people that might have been obvious from the start, for me ,having such a limited number of interests to begin with it wasn’t, I needed to try everything I could. At the end of the day we do what we find the most pleasure doing. I’ve concluded I’ll never make money at my “hobbies” so I’ll make good instead.
I guess I’m lucky, I discovered that one of the things I seem to love doing can encompass a number of the things I also like being involved in. I may not be great at it, but I hope to attain ‘goodness’ in photography, unfortunately it’s one of those pastimes that run on money but I’ll do the best I can. I like history to my surprise, always hated it in school, I now get to take photos of historic buildings and places, learning about them, and particularly people associated with them. I’ve had an interest in the outdoors and the “stuff” in it for a long time but haven’t pursued that interest, now I do, with my camera, I’m not going to go as far as studying Latin but I will look up names of plants now and then. As time goes by I’ll find other things I feel that I can add to my camera bag, perhaps I may even find an interest in people one day, that would be good, my family won’t let me take their photos, they say my camera makes them ugly. Candid is the most beautiful photo that can be taken of anyone.
It seems to only take one thing to trigger a purpose for being, for me it was finding a love of photography. That one trigger, regardless of what it is, can tie together so many other things that go to make up a full “Life”. I’m still confused, but one day I’ll learn how to think, until then I’ll take photos and write things down, so I can understand them.
JAWhite Return To Main Page
July 2010
Image : Courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
