Baubles and Bangles and Balls

“I’ll lasso the moon for you,” young George tells Mary, in Thornton Wilder’s 1910 ‘Our Town.’

And as the 'Ball of Gold' poem by Stephen Crane (1871-1900) goes:

A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;
He climbed for it,
And eventually he achieved it --
It was clay.
Now this is the strange part:
When the man went to the earth
And looked again,
Lo, there was the ball of gold. 
Now this is the strange part:
It was a ball of gold.
Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.

Yes. “Be careful what you want, for you’ll get it,” goes the saying. Yet, the thing is, it’s the envisioning, the dreaming, and the actions taken toward our objectives that count, over and over. How else to live life as fully as we can? With goals in mind we move ourselves from stasis. Yes, there is no real perfect paradigm; no one size fits all. Still, by making choices, choice after choice, it is the journey itself that involves us most, very seldom the finality. We move! As Robert Frost (1974-1963) wrote: “I have promises to keep; And miles to go, before I sleep.”

Thing is, are we internally, or externally, motivated? What incites us most to action? And once a thing is obtained, then, what’s next? After all, as Robert Browning (1812-1889) urged: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp -- or what's a heaven for?"  Then too, as Shakespeare’s Juliet exhorts: “Swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon.... [of the 1500’s] but swear by Thyself.”

True, restlessness grips us. We scarcely can stay put. We hardly can wait. We find our bones need shifting. We find our brains need stimulating. We want more, and more, and something else, somewhere else, (and sometimes even someone else.) We seldom can meditate. We seldom can sit still. With no magazine to flip, no phone to check, no music to hear, no new person to enter the room, no drama, no tv, no games, no cookies; how to be self-satisfied? Cigarettes, and coffee, and chatter, and (unchecked) thoughts govern us, mostly. Sometimes our brains simply slip out of gear. Yes, ideas (and ideals) can be ephemeral. Obtaining them is satisfying, yes, but soon enough one needs to be away. Like birds on twigs, or even at last in our nests, we humans are fundamentally itinerant. All that glitters, indeed, is not gold.

“A rolling stone gathers no moss,” goes the dictum. Frequently though, one meets the exception. (Wendy, of the Shady Rest in Qualicum Beach, has worked there for over 30 years. So too has Darci worked for three decades in the same barber shop, in Victoria’s Fort Street. Then, recently, our too-young-looking server at the Maple Bay Pub revealed that she’d worked there for over 22 years.) Everywhere, there are outliers. Indeed, at times when we over-generalize there is often enough evidence to disprove one’s contentions. (Yes, one can become quite astounded at how utterly wrong one can be.) Our gold can become clay. Then again, generally, like “the inconstant moon” itself, we prefer once more to be on the move! Wonderful as anything is; where’s the next pot o’ Gold?