Time Capsule #174
How Much A Dollar Cost
Greetings,
It has been some time since I’ve written a newsletter.
Good to be back.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.
—Henry David Thoreau
✏️ Cost of Sale
All things in life have a price. What is yours?
As the saying goes, “you can have anything you want in life, but not everything”. Perhaps it is premature, but I feel a real sense of urgency to create the life I actually want. It’s a question that hasn’t a simple answer. Does any man truly go where he wants, outside of what he knows and where the winds of life push him? But it’s an important question, for there will comes a day that will unknowingly be my last.
There is idealism and there is pragmatism. Life is too short to dream of pragmatics, and so let’s discuss the ideal. There are the [seemingly] obvious aspects of life which serve as a foundation for a good life — God, family, friends, good health. My next instinct is work. For all men must work. I feel fortunate at present to have work that I am genuinely passionate about, that provides (at least for now) opportunities for personal and professional growth. Long may it last. However, in this blurry and hypothetical ideal, I imagine an entirely different environment and approach to life than at present.
I would like a nice, comfortable house in nature. Perhaps in the country, decorated by small fields of gold and the sounds of the birds and the wind. I would write more; I do a fair bit of writing for my work, which certainly has made me a strong writer, but I would write fiction, essays, perhaps non-fiction as well. I would live a much slower life, one not inescapably tied to the clock — the clock is the greatest source of bondage in the developed world. I would read, of course, and perhaps teach a little too. And importantly, I would have freedom and means to create this life.
I think it important to reflect on one’s trajectory every so often. The days are long and the years are short as one gets older. I think it has something to do with the damned clock. As far as I know you only live once, so may as well strive to make it as ideal as possible.
Miserere mei, Deus
💡 Food for Thought
Remember the shortness of life. And that you will never be as young as you are today. Every day is an opportunity to start afresh, to reset the board.
🔗 Sunday Best
The Importance of Morale
Whilst statistics continue to dominate most discussions, there is another factor, often overlooked, that often holds the key to battlefield success. Morale.
I reckon this goes for more than battlefield success.
A Chat with Henrik Karlsson
Those who appreciate writing will appreciate this podcast.
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
—Henry David Thoreau
Until next time,
Yours Truly
AT