There was a saying my grandpa used to use a fair amount. He would say that no matter what the objective to expect very little from your efforts in trying to achieve it. That way when you fail at least you don’t end up getting yourself down, and if you do actually succeed then you're doing that much better off anyways by way of surprise. Admittedly he was as usual just being his own bullshitting self in an attempt to make us laugh (as he still does to this day) but while it may sound kind of morbid to suggest I’m pretty sure he had something there.
Essentially I like to think his point was that there’s a difference between trying and caring; while subtle, it is both solid and quintessential. The latter action most usually resulting in of course disappointment and the former either at best some type of personal fulfillment or worst an un-hurtful detachment. I would assume only the presently or previously afflicted victims of lethargic habituation can appreciate the difficulty of pulling off such a separation since each are usually inseparably linked but then again I have been wrong before so who knows.
Let’s face it, the only way those who are, and have been in the past, served with failure a majority of the time in whatever it is they pursue would or could possibly continue doing what they do is by learning to master said distinction time after time after time. As they say, practice makes perfect…well, that or absent in more ways than one but usually if you've succumbed to such a state you probably didn’t get the point of the exercise especially when it came measuring means and ends.
For example, anyone who isn’t a conservative in the province of Alberta, and who gives two squeezes of shit about what goes on here, can probably attest to the above after last night’s election results. That’s not to say this only applies to politics but obviously given the circumstances right now it’s the easiest thing to apply it to. After all, it would be easy to go off about Bill 46, homeless people, peak oil, the tar sands and voter apathy but I’ll desist since I would lose track of where I’m trying to go with this.
It’s kind of weird. I have this vision in my head lots of times of sail boats, beer, tequila, fruit juice and oceans . It’s what I’d do if the world didn’t cater to economics, Newton’s Third Law and declining marginal utility. I’d spend my time sailing around the world to different island resorts while consuming nothing but large quantities of beer and tequila/rum based fruit drinks. Of course that’s not for today, tomorrow or anytime in the foreseeable future, but who knows, maybe the world one day for us won’t cater to anything at all. But until then I’m gonna have to stick with my grandfather on this one.
