I’m #interested in #lifelongprojects

Interest stats:

  • Interested since: 2006
  • Looking for a mentor: Nah
  • Willing to mentor: In a minor way
  • Level of interest: 4
  • Level of mastery: 3

Story:

Strangely, my interest in the particular topic started with an obsession with a song, which started with an experience. If I may quote myself from January 4th, 2006:

This weekend I was walking to a bar or something with a friend and we walked along this big guy (sort of a down-and-out kind of guy, but probably not homeless) who had a giant boom box on his shoulder and it was playing “The Impossible Dream” loudly and he was singing along and walking so slowly, swaying. We started singing too, and it was a moment. It was the most beautiful, sad, awesome, terrible, beautiful, terrible, horrible, awesome, sad, and beautiful thing… I spontaneously burst out in tears and started laughing. I have been listening to the song over and over since… something about the whole scene just tears me apart.

When whales die they slowly sink down into the ocean, and all of the fish and the mermaids and the turtles and the sea horses line up and watch it and wipe away the opposite of tears and sing.

The Impossible Dream. Yeah, it’s a bit dramatic. But I feel like the topic deserves drama. We are so used to being practical these days. Living within the realm of the doable and the possible. Why not ponder for a while on the impossible? Feel the beauty of expression that exists when you do something knowing full well that you will never finish, that it will never work, and not making excuses about it.  

Anyway, that train of thought eventually led me to this idea of lifelong projects.  I remember being inspired by Jane McGonigal’s Cookie Rolling project. Wow that is cool.  

Seriously. 

The Myth of Sisyphus is very appropriate here.  So is the idea of an infinite game.  

To embrace it in my own way, I started taking a photo at 8:36pm every day, captioning it with what I’m doing, who I’m with, and anything else that came to mind.  I started in May of 2008 and have been going since.  Others have joined, unjoined, and restarted. I have sort of hesitated to put together a website or central repository for this project… I like that it is personal, and sprawling, and sort of chaotic.

Here’s some of the original thinking behind the 8:36pm project.

Once you start thinking about this in a certain way, you realize that our lives are filled with lifelong projects.  Family, health, self-development, finances, career, etc.  But the key ingredient that makes them qualify as a #lifelongproject in the hashtag sense is that they are done intentionally, and with an internal acknowledgement that they will never be done, and that is the beauty.

8 Notes/ Hide

  1. pamelab said: I’m quite taken with your posts lately. I’ve been thinking of similar ideas and I’m always up for a bit of sychronisity, following it where ever it leads. Lead on!
  2. bustr posted this

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