If you float that river down to the sea,
you will know long days of peaceful drifting,
but also rocks and rage, oh so bone-soaked.
You will be thrown from the craft, clinging --
trying to get back on to right your raft.
You will find yourself in an endless sea --
connected to all others.
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master; If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim: If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
First of all, I’d say that I probably could live most places in the world, and the few I couldn’t (e.g. North Korea) have no appeal to me as a place of residence. Having lived several places in the US, a couple years in England, and now over ten years in India, I’m under no illusions that there is a Shangri-la out there, a perfect utopia. Most places are fine places to live if one is flexible-minded and can adapt to that place’s rhythms and peculiarities. There may be a honeymoon period during which some place seems better than the rest, but even the most seemingly idyllic place will lose its luster in time.
That’s why I recommend travel. Everyplace offers beauty and life lessons when taken in bite-size pieces.
Do you need time?
I believe I prefer the order of a sequenced life rather than a life of “everything, everywhere, all at once.” But having never ventured off my worldline, I don’t have sound basis for comparison. If you know of how I could experience atemporal existence, I would be happy to give it a try and get back with you.
Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?
If I could do so as the me I am now, I’d do any of them (post-High School,) but if I’d be the me I was at the time, then I don’t see the point. Either way, there would be changes that would ripple through the rest of my life, to varying degrees. I got through largely without unnecessary tragedy, I’d as likely screw it up as improve upon it.
If nothing downstream could be changed, that would be like watching a boring documentary that had none of the tedious parts cut out. Like watching the 17 days a wildlife photographer sat freezing his ass off uneventfully before he got footage of a snow leopard. I really don’t see the point of that.
Life is beautiful because one has no idea what it might bring.
What major historical events do you remember?
From the Iranian Hostage Crisis onward, pretty much all of them — given they were considered “major” in whatever place I was living at the time.
I ran into a seeker from far lands,
and asked him what he sought in my hometown.
He said he sought what's true and beautiful.
I asked him if it was here, more than his home?
"Sometimes you have to walk a thousand miles
to find that which resides beneath your nose.
To unlock truth, the tumblers must align
from the shake of experience and time."
Uh, we are all seeking both. That is the fundamental strain of being human — the struggle between a need for novelty and a need for familiarity. We are all both tribesman and traveler — though in varied proportion. I love the traveler more in my own particular self.
As far as life experiences, I find just about everything gets better with age. It’s probably to do with the dawning realization that most of the shit one has gotten worked up about over the years wasn’t worth it (as well as the realization that one has fewer years ahead than behind and so one had better get on with it in an aware kind of way.) As icing on the cake, I’m virtually certain to be long gone before the oceans boil or the robots rise up and massacre humanity.
If the question is what kind of things get better with age… certainly not french fries.
What strategies do you use to increase comfort in your daily life?
I don’t, but I have a lot of strategies for being more content in the face of various situations and environments — including uncomfortable ones. These include the yogic practice of dispassionate witnessing, minimalism, travel (and specifically minimalist travel to places – the less familiar the better,) and intense physical activity.
I think comfort as a major objective in life is overrated, and virtually insures a discontented life. A life in which one can be content, whatever may come along, is a happy life.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 