Potatoes

Maybe this is more for me, but I'll let you in on some of my thoughts during the past week. [But really, how is that any different from most of my other posts?]

I've spent the past several days in thought - some conscious some sub-conscious.

The best comparison I can make about the deepest (and often the most important) thoughts I have is likening them to potatoes. Just work with me.

Many thoughts of mine stay hidden underground for quite some time and firmly root themselves before making their developed presence known - even to myself. To get the root out of the ground (the thoughts out of my head), I usually have to do some deep digging; and while it sometimes makes a mess, digging out ripened thoughts is always worth the effort.

Ever since I was a teenager, I have always looked forward to being 33 years of age. I'm there now - have been for a little over a month. I think my subconscious has been taking an evaluation of my life and taking a look at where I am in all aspects of my life.

Methinks the spuds in my head are ready to unearth themselves.

That being said, some standards I've used as a comparison are fair - others are not for obvious reasons.

Being that it's Passover week, I can't help but notice the obvious - I share the same age as what is generally believed to be Jesus Christ's when he died.

First, the obvious. To even attempt at making a life comparison to His is laughable. But then, isn't that the entire point of the example He provided?

Second, I can grasp that age compared to life expectancy is nowhere close for the 2000 years that separate us. Still, 33 years is 33 years.

In those terms, I think my comparative evaluation is probably the same as yours - I'm trying but continually fall short to His example.

The second comparison I've been going over in my mind:

Background:

A few years ago, I read the journal Meriwether Lewis maintained while he led the Corps of Discovery through the western United States.

I am continually awed at the expedition he led. In fact, I find his wilderness travels more impressive than going to the moon. I believe he knew less about the conditions and difficulties ahead of him when he left St. Louis than Neil Armstrong knew when he left the Earth's atmosphere.

But more than anything else Lewis wrote, what continues to stick out in my mind is what he wrote on his 31st birthday.

When you read his entry for that day, keep in mind he was part of a discovery that few imagined possible. The territory he mapped, the discovery of new flora and fauna, the encountering of different civilizations - all of this was unknown to any white man before him. With each footstep toward the west, he not only gradually expanded the territory claimed by The United States, he exponentially expanded the information available to all of mankind.

August 18, 1805

This day I completed my thirty first year, and conceived that I had in all human probability now existed about half the period which I am to remain in this Sublunary world. I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little, indeed, to further the hapiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. but since they are past and cannot be recalled, I dash from me the gloomy thought, and resolved in future, to redouble my exertions and at least indeavour to promote those two primary objects of human existence, by giving them the aid of that portion of talents which nature and fortune have bestoed on me; or in future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself.

I find what he wrote so inspiring. Sadly, Fortune would not bestow a whole lot of time to him; he died four years later of probable suicide.

I do believe his self-evaluation to be too harsh. But I can forgive it because so are my own self-evaluations.

However, after reading what he wrote, it caused me to evaluate how I spent my available time. And I have an infinity more distractions competing for my time than did Lewis - tv, movies, magazines, books, sports, computer, crap he couldn't even imagine.

When I first read that passage, I made the decision to try to invest my time more wisely; I cut a lot of everything out and there's still a lot of time (to use his words) that are not judiciously expended. Insert lamentation.

So there you go. That's what's been inside my head lately.