Hiatus - from the Latin for 'Save My Ass'

The Internet is in a sorry state. Strident liberals are calling Republicans nasty names, and insisting that conservatives want to control the nation's vaginas. Self-righteous conservatives are trying to characterize an honest difference of opinion on the morality of reproductive choices as a war on religion. With everyone focused on creating memorable sound bites to advance their cause, no one seems interested in the kind of civil discourse that could actually move us forward.

Obviously the nation needs me right now to set things straight. It's time for another of my long-winded posts. You know the type. You find they get tedious by the third paragraph, and your attention begins to flag. You skip to the end to see if I've made my point in summary so you don't have to read through all the boring folderol. You know you're going to get tired before I've come down firmly on one side or the other, determined as I am to give fair treatment to all sides. Eventually you just say to the screen, "Whatever..." and click over to Farmville or Words with Friends. I need to write one of 'those'.

Unfortunately I can't do that just now. I'm busy getting ready for a craft show in Orlando in a couple of weeks time. I've got photos to shop, prints to make, packages to assemble and displays to build. When it's over, with any luck, I'll also have money to count. Best not get ahead of myself though.

So I'm going to have to put off saving the world for a few weeks. I'm busy trying to save my financial ass, my self worth, and my sanity. I hope you understand.

MORE AIMLESS PHILOSOPHY

Ironically perhaps, there is an aim to aimlessness, and it is this—TRY NOT TO SCREW UP. No one intends to screw up, but some are more comfortable with it than others. To the truly directed for example, as opposed to the aimless, failure is a key stepping stone on the road to success. Failure teaches valuable lessons. Failure is useful, and, while it shouldn't be hoped for, once it has arrived, it should be embraced. Failing proves, among other things, that one is challenging oneself, reaching beyond one's grasp, daring the larger current and accepting the risk.

The aimless would never do that. To the aimless, failure is a setback of monumental proportion. Failure is a good reason to give up the whole enterprise. The aimless don't like to backtrack. They don't like to do stuff over. They don't like retracing their steps through familiar territory. The lament, 'been there—done that', was probably first uttered by a practitioner of the pillars of the aimless arts—procrastination, hesitance, ennui, and sloth.

Presentation slide for upcoming seminar on aimlessness.
Everything looks legitimate on PowerPoint!
If I thought people would come, I would totally do this.

The aimless believe that you can learn stuff from books. You don't need to repeat someone else's trials and failures to arrive at their level of knowledge. That's already been done. The person who did it, or some faithful chronicler of theirs, has written it down so you don't have to suffer through it all over again. This is a tremendous time saver.

The aimless don't get enough credit for this. People who have succeeded after multiple failures are way more interesting to the rest of the world than people who studied up on a thing and proceeded to do it right the first time. There's no romance in the drudge, or at least not so much as exists in the phoenix that manages finally to rise from the ashes of his own ineptitude. It's the phoenix who's going to become the CEO while the aimless drone toils in obscurity in the fetid depths of the accounting department—the one place he's suited for because it's the one place where you're not allowed to make a mistake.