Can you be interesting every day?

By Bill Pearse on February 22, 2013 • ( 3 )

I can’t be anything every day, let alone interesting. But it’s a good challenge: can I devote 15 minutes a day to record something interesting about my life? Is there something worth sharing, every day?

I came to this after reading the Wiki page on my step-dad, after he died. It took less than five minutes to read about his whole life, but I knew he was so much more than that. How would my page read? Would there even be one?

When my grandfather died, both my dad and uncle were hungry for any new information they could find on him: newspaper articles, stories from distant relatives, anything. They wanted to know him better, now that he was gone.

I’d like to know myself better, before I’m gone.

Remain in Light, 1980

For starters, it’s taken me about three years to get used to living in this house. Each morning, when I back out of the driveway, I pause to look at it, wanting it to feel normal, expecting it will click in. But it feels too good to be true. How did I end up here?

Knowing this is the house where we’ll live most of our lives, where our kids will grow up and make all of their memories…it forces you to see things differently. Life starts to narrow.

Now I work for the house, for the kids’ college, for retirement, for spending money. For what will come before the end. And I’ve lost touch with that flame that lifts the artist like a balloon, off the ground.

Thinking about dying in real terms is a great way to change the way you live. Some call it a bucket list. I call it a deadline.

Talking Heads: Once In A Lifetime