I miss my
friend, E—. At staging,
and at pre-service training, this man came off as high energy. HIGH energy. Nothing, though, was better than when he was his mellow self and just sat down to talk. Which really
is his forte. Getting to the meat of the matter with no pretense.
No topic was
off limits. Some topics, strangely specific.
Linguistics
of oppressive labeling in speech was one we bandied about during lulls one day
at a gender camp we ran last year. He’d sidle up, and whisper, “And what about
this...” And off we’d go on a tangent, instead of corralling the youth.
My last
memorable conversation with him, though, was about plans. And how they change.
To E—, if my
memory serves correctly, a plan is made with success of the goal in mind.
The inability to reach the goal isn't a total failure, but to
change a plan—it is more akin to weakness than strength.
I could
probably pinpoint the root of this philosophy somewhere in his personal experiences… A
personal tale of surmounting the odds and knocking goals off the punch list, if
there ever was one. But, I couldn't help
but disagree with him.
Plans are
forever drawn. A layout of where things should go, and the way things should
happen. They are scrapped, re-routed, re-drawn, re-mapped.
We look for
the best perceived route to the goal. Whatever that goal is.
In life,
there are epiphanies and obstacles, dreams and revelations.
I’m of the
opinion that when you want something, you work your way towards it, but if
something else comes along you want, too—then figure out a way to get both. If
you can’t have both, decide what you want more. Then work the conundrum again,
and see if you can align both desires.
For myself,
the plan is always going to change. What I’m doing now isn't what I’d imagined
I’d be doing ten years ago. What I’ll do next probably isn't what I planned on
before the start of my peace corps service.
There are a
finite number of choices… I acknowledge that reality. (And, in those choose-your-own-adventure
books from my childhood, I’d make the wrong ones, always ending up suffocating, locked in some
wardrobe.)
Even if that route is destined to change.