You Only Go Around Once! (at least that is all we know)

[Brian R. VanCise]

Okay so you only go around once. I mean you only live one life at least as far as we know. Putting aside hanging out with the family, friends, etc..... (because nothing is more important than family and good friends)

So what do you want to do in your lifetime?

I mean really what do you want to do that is achievable?

Just roll the dice and let us know as I am sure that everyone will be interested.

For myself I have quite a few things that I want to do. I want to write more books and create more DVD's. However I really want to just take some time off (maybe two years) and just work my way through Southeast Asia. Going from town to town and training and experiencing the different cultures. That sounds like alot of fun to me. (wish I had done it earlier

)

 

[terryl965]

One of my goals is to get a bus fully loaded and travel the US visiting schools of all styles and training at each one for a few months, being able to take the family and do this would just be great. Then after the US start to hit other countries over the next five to ten years, that would be awesome in my book anyway.

Now real life goals are more simple just bring my sons up to be respectful of other people and to follow there dreams no-matter what.

 

[exile]

I want to discover something that no one who works in my field will be able to do their own research without having to take into account... a fundamental result, something that captures at least part of the (almost certainly unexpected) connections at the deepest level.

 

[Carol]

I'd literally like to go 'round!


I'd like to take a trip that encircles the country....to travel west across the northern planes, then south down the pacific coast, back east across the southern states, then back up the eastern seaboard. I'd like to "take the road less traveled" and see the America that is outside the tourist traps and interstate oasis.

 

[Sukerkin]

An admirable goal, Exile.

Oddly, my do-before-I-die list is a bit prosaic. In no particular order:

1) I'd like to finish a book I start to write for once.

2) I'd like to actually become fluent in a language rather than just "Konnichi wa, watashi no namae wa Mark desu" level.

3) I'd love to tour America and see the real one rather than the 'cities and crime' movie reality I know at present.

4) I'd love to walk in at least one of the great primeval forests of the world. My soul is most at peace amongst the trees - which is why one of my most treasured days was spent walking through the rain in the forests near Loch Lomand.

5) I'd love to have a son (tho' I fear to bring anyone into the world that I think is coming).

6) I'd like to see us (humanity) venture further out into the universe before I die.

 

[exile]

An admirable goal, Exile.

Did you ever read Edgar Lee Masters' minor masterpiece, Spoon River Anthology? It's a collection of poems that are the fictional but in a basic sense true epitaphs in the cemetary of the equally fictional town of Spoon River that Masters used as a model of the human condition. In the poems, the dead say what they never could have said, or even realized consciously, in their life, and there's one that speaks to the motivation of this kind of desire:

John Horace Burleson

I WON the prize essay at school
Here in the village,
And published a novel before I was twenty-five.
I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art;
There married the banker's daughter,
And later became president of the bank--
Always looking forward to some leisure
To write an epic novel of the war.
Meanwhile friend of the great, and lover of letters,
And host to Matthew Arnold and to Emerson.
An after dinner speaker, writing essays
For local clubs. At last brought here--
My boyhood home, you know--
Not even a little tablet in Chicago
To keep my name alive.
How great it is to write the single line:
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!​

As for your goals—I don't find them prosaic in the least. Some advice: for forests, you cannot beat the ancient rainforests of the British Columbia coast. Even in Vancouver there are protected enclaves, and on Vancouver Island; and if you want to get into the wildest country you can imagine, with forests that have never been logged even now, that's the place to go. You could combine it very elegantly with the exploration of the US you mention; if you finish up in Washington State, it's a very short hop over the border to the Forest Primeval.

I'm with you on languages as well. I have no gift for languages at all, and it's way too late for me to try to use craft and perseverance to make up for lack of inborn ability... and I'm also with you on getting further out into the frontiers of the universe. Everything Carl Sagan and Freeman Dyson have written about this, I fervently endorse. I don't have great hopes in that direction, but... there's always a chance...

 

[Sukerkin]

Those forests sound divine, Bob. My minds eye is glistening just imagining the peace there :sigh:.

I'm gently 'working' on the missus to get her to see that emigrating to Canada is a good idea. Specifically Alberta as my skill set is much in demand there. That's but a hop-skip-and-a-jump away, relatively speaking from all those beautiful trees .

 

[Drac]

I want to travel to abroad...England, Rumania, Italy..

 

[Sukerkin]

{pondering voice}I wonder why Drac wants to go to Romania?{/pondering voice} :lol:.

If it ever comes about that you get to these shores, I'd be more than happy to either put you up for the night or give you some pointers as to where to visit.

 

[Drac]

{pondering voice}I wonder why Drac wants to go to Romania?{/pondering voice} :lol:.

If it ever comes about that you get to these shores, I'd be more than happy to either put you up for the night or give you some pointers as to where to visit.

Good guess about Rumania...I spent better than 1/2 my life playing Dracula..Twice on the stage and it countless radio commericals and public appearences..It's only natural I want to visit the Country that influenced the whole thing..They do a Halloween thing there that would be a real treat...Draculas Castle on All Hallows Eve...

 

[exile]

Those forests sound divine, Bob. My minds eye is glistening just imagining the peace there :sigh:.

They are indescribably beautiful—hemlock, cedar, and the awe-inspiring Douglas firs, many of them two hundred or more feet high... and not just the forests, but the huge, crystalline lakes and hanging glaciers and... and... sigh, indeed!

I'm gently 'working' on the missus to get her to see that emigrating to Canada is a good idea. Specifically Alberta as my skill set is much in demand there. That's but a hop-skip-and-a-jump away, relatively speaking from all those beautiful trees .

Western Alberta, if you can land it—the Canadian Rockies defy description in any language of Earth. They are wilder and much denser than the American Rockies, and are almost completely uninhabited. Check out the photos here, here, and especially... HERE!!!

The East is much flatter. Look in the direction of Calgary... you will not be disappointed...

(BTW: the B.C. forests are set in the Coast Range mountains, which are much like the Rockies, a little lower in elevation... but just as wild and imposing, in some cases even more so.)

 

[Sukerkin]

I don't want to divert the thread by going on too much about my own 'desires' but I have to agree about the beauty in those photo's, Bob. Glorious.

I spent three weeks in Calgary and environs a few years ago (training course at GE Harris) and we took a trip out to Banff. Standing on Sulphur Mountain (about where this camera is http://www.banffgondola.com/live_cam.asp#) in the middle of a winter gale was an experience . Sadly we have no pictures of it as our camera froze !

 

[exile]

I don't want to divert the thread by going on too much about my own 'desires' but I have to agree about the beauty in those photo's, Bob. Glorious.

I spent three weeks in Calgary and environs a few years ago (training course at GE Harris) and we took a trip out to Banff. Standing on Sulphur Mountain (about where this camera is http://www.banffgondola.com/live_cam.asp#) in the middle of a winter gale was an experience . Sadly we have no pictures of it as our camera froze !

Ah, you've been there, then—excellent! So you know just how out of this world that whole part of the world is... if that's not too oxymoronic...

Like Drac, I'd really like to get to Italy too. Especially Florence; but the whole place is supposed to be magnificent, each region its own little universe of climate, scenery, food and wine. It's definitely on my list of "must-do"s. And Ireland as well...

 

[bydand]

I'd literally like to go 'round!


I'd like to take a trip that encircles the country....to travel west across the northern planes, then south down the pacific coast, back east across the southern states, then back up the eastern seaboard. I'd like to "take the road less traveled" and see the America that is outside the tourist traps and interstate oasis.

I actually did this a few years before I was married. What a great trip! Memories that will last a lifetime, and none from tourist places, or someplace even expected. One of the best was because I happened to need gas in this little town out on the plains in Eastern Colorado. Couldn't tell you the name of the place to save my soul right now, but there is really nothing there except for this lone gas station and a few scattered houses. Found myself sitting around an old cracker barrel drinking a Dr. Pepper with several older gentlemen playing checkers (thought I had fallen into an episode of Mayberry RFD). Ended up out to a ranch outside of town helping them load up a Bull into a trailer because they needed another hand and "nobody else looked like they were going to stop" :idunno:. After the cantankerous bugger was loaded and gone down the road, the gas station owner and the ranch owner asked me to stay for a bit because they were having a BBQ for the neighbors and it just seemed like I could use a bit more time off the beaten path. They were right, and I had a great time meeting these fine people who work day in and day out in the middle of nowhere. Some of the best BBQ I have ever had, and a great evening with about 25 people I never met before, just because I needed gas.

My greatest goal is to instill values and openness like this toward others, in my children, so this world will always have a few bright spots left, no matter what else is happening around them. I don't really need more money, a bigger house, or nicer vehicle; I do need/want good children, who grow into good adults!

 

[Jade Tigress]

My dream is a tropical vacation. White sand beaches, azure waters, sunshine...you get the picture. Maybe Fiji or somethiing.

 

[Kacey]

I want to be positive influence on the kids I teach... I don't care if they like me or not - but I want to be one of the people they remember when they look back to the people who helped them set and meet their goals - and the same for my TKD students (some of whom aren't kids).

I want to meet someone I can share my life with, who wants to share his life with me; I don't really care where we go or what we do - but as much as I love my dog, he's not much on conversation.

 

[Jade Tigress]

Psh. All you people with your lofty goals. Can I just get a vacation dammit? lol

Seriously, I admire you all very much. Wish I had that kind of vision. :asian: