Talks

Nora and I had a nice talk with a friend last Sunday morning, about long-term possibilities.  

We then had a nice talk with Mom on Sunday afternoon, about long-term possibilities.  

Tuesday at lunch, I had a nice talk on the phone with friends, about long-term possibilities.  

And Tuesday afternoon, I had a nice talk with my doctor, about long-term possibilities.

A lot of talking about the future lately. 

Nora and I had a nice talk with a friend last Sunday morning, about Middletown Springs.

We then had a nice talk with Mom on Sunday afternoon, about MS and about New York.

Tuesday at lunch, I had a nice talk on the phone with friends, about Washington D.C.

And Tuesday afternoon, I had a nice talk with my doctor, about Boston.

A lot of talking about places lately. 

Nora and I had a nice talk with a friend last Sunday morning, about land and construction.

We then had a nice talk with Mom on Sunday afternoon, about support and satisfaction.

Tuesday at lunch, I had a nice talk on the phone with friends, about management and strategy.

And Tuesday afternoon, I had a nice talk with my doctor, about how bodies do and don't work.

A lot of talking about ideas lately. 

It's nice to have these talks.  Each one of them expands my thinking, expands my possibilities.  But we often allow ourselves to become suspended in possibilities and avoid the material world of choice.  At some point, possibilities must be left aside in favor of a decision made.

I wrote a book a few years ago about a young man who was trapped in that web of possibilities, and saw no clear choice to be made.  He preferred to have the vicarious, imagined pleasure of what could be instead of the real struggles and joys of action in the world.  And he knew that he was making that choice, and that the choice had its own costs.  He knew that he was living in the world of imagined rather than real satisfactions.

Nora and I had a nice talk with a friend last Sunday morning, walking through a Vermont forest.

We then had a nice talk with Mom on Sunday afternoon, sitting together next to the wood stove.

Tuesday at lunch, I had a nice talk on the phone with friends, taking notes over the phone.

And Tuesday afternoon, I had a nice talk with my doctor, sitting in his cluttered office.

A lot of talking about the future lately.  And because our emotions are autobiographies of the future, all of them felt a certain way.

Any decision we make will carry costs.  And we focus on those costs rather than the possibilities.  What might go wrong rather than what will be good.  Todd Rundgren once wrote a song called "Can't Stop Running," in which the course of a life was described in four verses.  The first two verses were framed with the line "I was running to something."  The last two were framed with the line "Now I'm running from something."  It gets easier to see what we don't want, and harder to see what we do.

Time to clear my eyes, and remember toward what I hope to run.