Enjoying the Ride

December 6, 2005

A rousing off-line discussion has addressed the question of process and result. We have noticed that a certain kind of person refuses to enter into the process of applying himself toward what he wants without some kind of guarantee because "it'll never work anyway."

Or the reductionist, collapsing into Time the Destroyer, the boy who jumped off his skateboard outside a Manhattan florist, and told us, "Flowers just die. They're not worth it."

We do, and they do, and are worth the ride. Properly attended to, the process becomes its own reward and arrival is just extra, another moment of relish at a new point-of-departure. As one of our fearfully smart correspondents reminds us, Richard Wagner wouldn't be remembered for Der Ring des Nibelungen if he had written only the last, resolving chord. There would have been nothing to resolve.

The season is Advent. The theme is anticipation. And preparation. There's no pre-verified timetable for the Heart's Desire to come riding up to the front door. But nowhere is it written, either, that disappointment prevails forever.

The Dilbert blog yesterday addresses the elements of one of the best things in life -- humor. Always, something is here to amuse, at the jagged extremes an inspired angle on even the elements of cruelty and commonality, transformed into funny, and poignant.

Scott Adams admires Stephen Pastis' Pearls Before Swine. Occasionally the strip is a pearl.

Wait, what does that make us?

Update: Now this is just self-destructive. It may be in the script that comic characters have to return to the designated destroyer of dreams. Fortunately, we don't. Off with you, Skateboard Boys everywhere!

Comments

[March Hare]

Followed you here from the comment you left on my blog, The Mad Tea Party. (Thanks, BTW, for the suggestions.)

Glad to meet another cartoon/humor fan. Laughter can't be a bad thing, can it? Especially when directed at oneself.