You can reflect, seek council, play out out the multitude of scenarios, and analysis until the cows come home, but there’s a point where there’s nothing left to do but to do it.  And if it all goes to pot, then say FIDO and keep going.

A friend of mine had issues with my ill-defined goals for this year. She called them “gutless.” Here was my reply:

Phew!! You nearly had me. You nearly made me doubt myself and return to the pit – the place that all existentialist know is there. In the pit, you realise that there is nothing, no meaning of life, no meaning to life, no heaven, no hell, no nirvana, nothing. Now there are two ways out of the pit. Either you can’t accept that there is nothing and you fall into despair or you realise that there is nothing and you take the opportunity to create your own meaning in life. Whether that is true or not is still open for debate. I believe it.

In one of our last conversations I said to you that you and I are two sides of the same coin. We are both eternal seekers. That our role in this world is to seek and I know, certainly from my perspective, that I am happiest when I embrace this role. It’s when I try to convince myself otherwise, when I try to force myself to find something else because the seeker’s life never seems to settle and this goes against mainstream society where they would rather we find a nice little consumerist’s box to fit in and do our part to keep the machine ticking. I recently read an argument that says there is no left and right anymore, instead we are divided into consumers and failed consumers. So you better work hard, accumulate money so you can be the perfect consumer.

Anyway, I digress. If you mean by ‘gutless’ that I haven’t taken a stand, that I have not committed myself to anything, then you are half-right. I haven’t commitment myself to anything, apart from being a seeker. I like being a seeker and I like being an adventurer. I like embracing life as it comes. Ok yeah, I set some loose goals to give me a certain orientation and that’s ok by me. Does that mean I will never accomplish anything? Maybe. Will I have enjoyed myself, heck yes. As Jay-Z observes in one of his songs: “nine to five is how you survive, but I don’t want to survive, I want to live it to the limit and love it lot.”

In my mind, I have a clear vision of what I want to do. I want to read a billion books, consume loads of media, and absorb tons of knowledge. A friend of mine asked me last week what do I want to do with all this knowledge. In truth, I want to pursue knowledge for knowledge’s sake. But yeah, ok, I have to earn some coins in order to thrive in this society, so I will have to figure out a way to make the knowledge pay.

I wonder, would my aims have been less ‘gutless’ if I had said:

I want to get a PHD in history and politics
I want to volunteer to be iReporter for CNN
I want to challenge Boing Boing for the number one blog on the Internet
I want to get powerful politicians and some named rich people into my social network
I want to write 20 essays and have them published in the top magazines and literary journals
I want to write a book that addresses the consumer society and why we are all going to burn in Hell
I want to climb the tallest mountain in Europe

(damn!, that’s a good list, isn’t it?)

I have a friend who is a professional speaker and his message is YES if you want to be a success in life, you have to set BIG hairy goals. So by his logic, if I don’t set big hairy goals, then I will not be a success. Is that the same thing you mean by ‘gutless’ goals?

And both of you may be absolute right, my gutless, hairless goals will lead me right down the path of failure.

But here’s the thing, you, me, him, we all end up the same – dead. For me success is being able to answer yes to the following questions:

Did I consciously choose how I wanted to live my life?
Did I embrace life with an adventurous spirit?
Did I love my fellow humans and did I treat them with dignity and respect?
Did I develop myself to my full potential?

Thanks for making me do this. I guess my blog post has done a good job. It bothered you enough to make you think deeper. It made you question me, which made me think deeper. And as a result, I’ve just articulated my four guiding principles.

Wham, bam, thank you ma’am, 5 minutes and £25 is all it took to pass inspection. MOT inspection, that is. My banger is now road worthy. I must add, it’s just barely road worthy considering I used cheap labour and cheap parts to get it through inspection.

Not to worry, it’s now our spare vehicle. I recently bought a used Ford Galaxy with only 53,000 miles on the clock. The tax runs out on the Astra today, so I’ll park it on the drive and keep it around as the emergency vehicle when one or the other of our vehicles is being fixed or serviced. I only deal in used cars anyway, at least 10 years old. They don’t cost me much and generally I’ll run them until they fall apart and aren’t worth fixing.

I’ve only ever owned one new car in my life and the whole time I hated it. I hated paying that monthly car note. I sold it after a few months and went back to my trusty old bangers. I’m not one of these guys who equates their car with their penis or who is bothered about status. Old bangers, to me, have personality. And as Samuel L. Jackson said in Pulp Fiction: “personality goes a long way.”

I’ve been such a domesticated slug lately.  Traveling back and forth to London everyday for 7 months has taken its toll, mostly around my midriff.  The commute itself actually hasn’t been that bad.  I get 2 hours of quality reading time in the morning and 2 hours of quality reading time in the evening on the way back.  What has suffered is my gym time.  By the time I get home in the evening, I have time for only a 30 minute workout which is just not enough for me.  Anyway, I decided last week that it’s time to boost up the fitness training and start running again.  I always find running to be the quickest way to get into tip top shape.

I said all of that to say, today I went for 2.5 mile run, which on the face of it is nothing, except I’ve not done it for 7 months so 2.5 miles, while easily doable, hurt.  All good though.  After the run, I spent most of the rest of the day geeking hard trying to get my latest project, Six Feet from the Edge, launched.  Pop on over and take a quick peek.

Other than that, no great news.  Ciao.