When faced with recalcitrant pre-schoolers, we can smack them.
When faced with mutinous teenagers, we can reason with them.
But what does one do with mature, pragmatic forty-year olds who just refuse to move out of the rut?
How long does it take for a "habit" to form? And, if it can be broken, how long would that take?
At forty most of us have not even lived half our lifetimes. I say not even because the first twenty years of most of our lives are just training and practise anyway, so they really do not count.
There have been amongst us persons who have achieved a lifetime's worth of work in the first half of their lives - Alexander and Mozart, to name a couple.
But there have also been those whose works and creations did not see light of day until they were well past the first flush of youth - Le Corbusier and Colonel Sanders, the examples here.
So what is it that makes some of us go " can't shan't won't" but others "can shall will" ?
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2 comments:
what's wrong with the rut?
speaking relatively, of course. my own definition of 'the rut' is a complacent - i'd like to say passionless but i think i mean something less dead - quiet acceptance of reality.
why do you have to do something to be something?
it's one thing if you complain that you're in the rut and that you don't like it there... but if you're perfectly happy, secure in the knowledge and safety of ruttiness, why bother? in the long run, nothing counts.
mozart was brilliant, sure, but he died young.
i am sure my answer has changed from my teenage years when i had romantic notions of making a difference... but i've come to value my life as it is and live what comes when it comes rather than dream and despair.
so forgive me, but i must say, i would rather trade the many years Mozart missed out on by dying young for the lack of uberness.
i'd go as far as to say anyone who has made an honest, selfless, worthy difference hasn't done so by setting out to do so. it just came along the way as they were doing what was comfortable to them.
from a certain perspective (a lazy one or a philosophical or spiritual one - take your pick)it's not a question of 'can't, shan't won't' or 'can shall will' but rather, 'why try?'
sorry 'bout the rambling. i set out to perpetuate this board since there hasn't been any activity for a while and got caugh up in words :)
Oh so totally agree with the bard. Read this book once, called Saville by David Storey in which he says maybe the mould is the most precious thing we've got. It's what makes us confident and ready to take on the world, tiny fists all bunched up. He says greatness has nothing to do with leaving the rut. Think Shakespeare who never went beyond England, or Michelangelo who didn't make it past Florence. So. Guess it's not what the rut brings out in you, but what you bring out in the rut.
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