Bucket List

Soundtrack: "Kids on Holiday" - Animal Collective - Sung Tongs (FatCat Records - 2004)

To me, bucket lists seem like a way to devalue the everyday experience. They follow from the idea that life should be measured by the number of exciting things one did or how well life matched one's expectations, but this is too limited in scope. Despite this, I will attempt to list some things that I would like to do, but of course, it is not imperative that these things do happen.

High School:

• Road trip with friends
• Release at least one full-length album
• Perform more poetry
• Write more
• Continue math study on my own (despite running out of money)
• Improve at guitar
• Perform my music live

I am obviously rather ambitious when it comes to artistic endeavors, but I think that working on my art in its various forms is the most fulfilling thing I could be doing at this moment. Whenever I find myself concerned with imminent matters, I always seem to daydream about some melody that has been reverberating around my skull or a phrase that I feel must be spoken. It seems that setting some sort of goals for these artistic endeavors will allow me to focus my efforts and actual create something worthwhile.

College:

• Get signed to small record label
• Travel
• Hike, explore
• Further develop personal philosophy
• Write more
• Actually go to class somewhere in between
• Go to graduate school (stay in academia forever)

College is still a mystery to me, and consequently, I only have vague ideas and sweeping generalities of what it will be like. I mostly just want to use the time to continue the sort of personal development that I have been  working on during high school. College will allow me the opportunity to test myself and my ideas about the world with a microcosm of my larger reality to come. Hopefully, the synecdoche will be accurate enough to help me change my ideas to reflect what I have learned. It would also be nice to write about my experiences meanwhile.

Life:

• Get married (if truly wanted)
• Have children
• Own a record store (or just drastically expand my collection)
• Write at least one book
• Teach anyone anything as often as possible
• Learn as often as possible
• Experience life in all its splendor

When it comes to life as a whole, I just want to find genuine happiness in whatever I do. I have great longings for true human connection and fatherhood, but this is something that must happen naturally. I want most to engage in an interactive learning experience for my entire life. If you aren't teaching or learning (not in a strictly academic sense), you are stagnating, and I cannot afford to stagnate.