Welcome to the “I declare my independence” edition of Makes-Me-Smile Monday. I’d like to be free from my kids some days and if I worked (outside the home, for a wage), I’m sure I’d like to be free from my job at times. I’d like to be free from a fashion-industry-induced obsession with extreme thinness (obviously I really am pretty free from this obsession, but I mean I’d like to not feel bad about this), and aren’t you impressed that I recently became free from an 11-year caffeine addiction?
Today is the day I declare my independence from the future. In some distant, but nearer-seeming-on-particularly-optimistic-days future, I am a writer and a perfect mother and a good wife and loving daughter, sister, and friend. In that rosy future, I am always patient and have energy to shine my kitchen sink every night. I wear a size eight and run a half-marathon twice a year. Since I’m earning millions of dollars from my writing, I hire a babysitter periodically and go to the salon once a month and on dates with my husband(not to mention actually making it to the dentist and eye doctor yearly).
In that future I live in a Zion of my own making, growing most of my own food and spending time on worthwhile projects (while also having time for the occasional trashy novel without guilt). In short, I’m a candidate for immediate sainthood, but I’m funny and “real” enough to make people still want to be my friend despite my perfection and perfectly enviable lifestyle.
Epicurus (that hedonistic Greek philosopher) said, “The man least dependent upon the morrow goes to meet the morrow most cheerfully.” Or as the great film Dead Poets Society urges, carpe diem, “seize the day” — or, as that great arbiter of knowledge, Wikipedia, contends, “gather the day”:
be smart, drink your wine. Scale back your long hopes to a short period. Even as we speak, envious time is running away from us. Gather the day, for in the future you can believe the minimum. (Horace)
I don’t want to lower my good expectations; perhaps I even need to raise them in some areas of my life. I do however, want to silence that voice in my head that urges that only tomorrow, that perfect day that I will probably never live, will I be happy or good enough or smart enough or enough enough.
I hope you have something to declare your independence from (or maybe that is a selfish wish on my part, as it sounds like I am hoping that in some way you feel not completely free — if you are free, please tell me how you did it!). To participate in the blog carnival, enter your name (description) and post address, and link back to this blog. For further details, see the Makes-Me-Smile Monday link above. And have a happy Fourth! (or Fourteenth, or whenever you celebrate independence).
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Don’t know why I’m on there twice, I only put myself on once, I promise.
Thought I’d copy n paste here for those who can’t access mine otherwise…
- Big Surprise, huh? -
I am coughing up a dualistic post today, on this hot Monday morning. Now, if only I could decide which one to write first…
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So, there is this survey that just came out (yeah, I know, it’s been discussed what a total JOKE these things are) but it was on my homepage “news blurbs” section, so I had to take a quick peek. The title said something about whether having kids or sharing housework is more important in marriage, or how to make a marriage last, or whatever. Blah. I swear, being married turned me into a social pessimist, for the most part.
Funny thing is, I don’t think I have to tell you what the study “discovered,” it is pretty much common sense (to me, anyways). I suppose co-habitation and having kids works for some (most?) families, but I am counting down the days until the only dirty clothes I pick up off the bathroom floor belong to me (or my kids, of course).
[In H's defense, however, I left for work around 6 pm last night, and by the time I got home a couple of hours later, the kids were fed and the living room was clean. And lately he's been grumbling that I don't seem to want to spend any time talking with him. These changes are about a year too late, but anyways...]
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Part 2: MMSM (makes me smile monday) topic
This week, we will be celebrating our independence, here in the United States. No surprises, there. Shannon, at http://www.seagullfountain.com/ , has challenged us to finish this statement:
I declare my Independence…
…from??
Hm, easier said than done. Maybe from myself (I can be my own worst enemy)? Maybe from society (sometimes I just can’t fit the mold)?
I don’t know. If you have discussed politics with me, and perhaps even if you haven’t, you might know that I believe quite strongly in liberty and in personal responsibility. I get emotional about the American Revolution, and I am not even that American. Maybe the only answer I can give to this is that we are all free, already.
It’s sort of like Iraq (and don’t fight me on this, just a feeble illustration, not a pro/anti war debate); somebody said those people have been liberated. They have been “set free.” But, wait- isn’t freedom an inherent part of our humanity? How canone person grant freedom to another? How can I declare independence, if I am already free?
Sorry, Marie, i put on the second link bec. the first one was taking me to the main myspace page–but then when I tried to delete the first one (since I’m not at my home computer) Mr. Linky isn’t recognizing me as having administrative powers or something, but I got Tom to take care of it.
Hey you…part of your future sounded like the future I wanted, too! I agree w/ Horace…I need to drink my wine! xoxo -Barb
I declare that I am free of men who drag me down. People who are parasites. People who are co dependant. Oh ****, just about anyone who is trying to drain me in any way, shape or form. (My children are the exception as they have never been like that and I would help them in a New York second!!
hey, Barb — i actually don’t drink alcohol, so i was thinking for me it has to be “be smart, drink your hot chocolate with extra dark chocolate chips and whipped cream on top!”
I find that I must (forced into it I’m afraid) declare my independance from youth. Or, at least I want independance from the whole idea that youth is better than age, or more desireable. Or the most perniscious inuendo, that youth is a virtue and the older you are the more culpable you are, having less and less of that virtue. Seriously, have you noticed that attitude in teen agers? Or is it my paranoia? As all things old inexorably creep up on me, including my bulging belly, my fading eyesight, my constipated memory. I’ll leave the prostate troubles out of this (I just didn’t, didn’t I?).
Remember in Mork and Mindy (a 70’s TV show, in which Robin Williams got his start — probably only few of you remember) the part played by Jonathan Winters, wherein the character began as an old guy and was progressing younger and younger with age? What a concept! Reflects our culture’s obsession with youth.
As one of the oldest ones on this blog, probably, (Dave and Marian, let’s form a club) let me tell you… Actually, I hate it when my patients say to me, “Growing old is not fun.” Growing older is something we are all doing, ostensibly at the same rate, though subjectively not. I wonder what Eliz Barrett Browning was referring to when she said, “Come, grow old along with me; the best of life, for which the first was made, is yet to be.”
I really do look forward expectantly to the greatest adventure … the next life. Remember that line from Indiana Jones 2 (not a terribly memorable movie otherwise), in which his friend gets shot, and whose last words are, “Indie, I get to go first!” It’s just that between then and now we have to go through all the age related ills and gradual diminishments.
Does an oldster get special consideration when judged for his worthiness? Does age-induced crochetiness count against one in evaluating how charitable he has been, or does arthritic slowing and faulty memory excuse one from faltering diligenece in trying to be a disciple? It’s probably no accident that to “endure to the end” is more and more difficult, in some ways, as one gets closer to the end.
Of course there are compensations, and joys that come only with age, chief among which are loving and loveable children and grandchildren. Many others, but I forget them right now.
I love it that our Prophet (Pres. Hinckley of the LDS Church) is so old (97). How can any of us say we are tired, or that it isn’t fair, or that we just can’t do what we’re asked, when he sets such a pace? Have you heard how many of the 50-70 year old leaders who work with him say that they have trouble keeping up with him? Once a 65 year-old said something like, “I’m too old to do that!” in response to a request from Spencer W. Kimball. Spencer Kimball was 85 at the time, and replied, “Oh, to be 65 again!”
The trouble is, of course, that really the only relief from the aging process is …death. So life as an oldster is preferable. Isn’t it? Surely our attitudes and actions as an oldster reflect our real inner selves, as if a preliminary judgement. Scarey thought! Just wait — it will happen / is happening to you, too. How egalitarian!
I do love reading your blog. And you have no IDEA how impressed I am that you gave up caffeine. Do tell me how you did it. I gave up wine (so I guess I too will not be smart and drink my wine) but I cannot give up the coffee.
It is 6:20 a.m. here, and I really cannot think well at this hour. I used to think it was a stupid excuse when people said that, but for me I find it to be true. I will think about what I want to be independent of on my 85-hour commute, and I will get back to you when I get to work and can relax. Then I will do the link and such.
Dad Hyatt- don’t know if the opinion of a youngish person(24 yo) matters, but I look forward to aging, because I feel like maybe by then I will “have it all together” and I see myself as having something worthwhile to say/write in that distant future, well, more worthwhile than now, because I certainly don’t stop talking/writing in the present.
I could NOT get on your site all day! ‘Twas driving me crazy. Anyway, I’ve got it. I declare my independence from worry.
I worry about everything. It will not make any difference if I do so; it will not affect the outcome. I have to remember that everything will be okay. Even if I die, everything will be okay. So that is it.
(And I am with you on the writer who is a size 8 dream.)
June, I’m the culprit for Shannon’s site being down most of the day. She was about to strangle me over the phone for it, so I’m glad it finally came back up. We share space on the same host, and I needed to move our account to a server with PHP5 so I could run Mediawiki. Anyway, I’m glad you waited it out — her site shouldn’t be down again.
Declaring my independence from something — what a cool spin on celebrating the Fourth of July. I am declaring my independence from the desktop. I have a “Need to Sort” folder that contains hundreds of unsorted documents of all different file types. I am transferring my life online, but not to a completely open web. I’m going to start using a wiki to organize my thoughts on things, using it as an online scratch pad tucked away in a password protected directory. (I will still blog, of course.)
I declare my independence from MS Word, from Microsoft Outlook, from FeedDemon, and all the other desktop tools that I can unchain myself from. (Okay, it’s not possible to totally be free, but nearly.)
Not entirely sure why I’m doing this — it just feels right. I can organize my space more coherently online. On my desktop, it looks kind of like the house right now. Oh shoot.
Tom, imagine what a household of 4 princesses looks like after hours of playing!!! We got the girls to clean today for the first time since your darlings arrived. They are having so much fun together. Oh, and you’re a lucky man–Shannon’s so helpful and a good cook. Maybe it’s just the experience of having someone at home with me who actually cleans up after herself (and me and the girls) rather than just having little ones around me that make messes for me to clean up.
[...] me nice things) have encouraged me elsewise, despite such slackerness as letting my old carnival Makes-Me-Smile Monday die a grief-inducing sigh-of-relief from guilted-into-participating-friends-and-family [...]