Musings

The Great Maybe

Posted at August 18, 2006 09:18

By Ron Marr

The expectations are a bit cloudy, the Magic 8 Ball offering its vague advice of “ask again later.” This is the spring that followed the winter that wasn’t, a season that left the entire populace of my little Gasconade River hideaway a tad confused.

In January, when the mercury over-achieved its normal condition by forty degrees, I arose to a morning symphony of tittering songbirds. During February, a period usually reserved for the cold, gray, and silent, I watched squirrels drag out their beach towels and bask in the sun. Come March, I was eyeing the sprouting green and preparing to change the oil in the riding mower.

This machine had not only spent the invisible winter in the great outdoors, it had apparently taken the Civil Service exam. With the exception of a couple of inclement days in December 2005, my big, green, lawn barber had almost wholly avoided the perils of rain, sleet, and snow.

I do not attribute the balmy days and placid nights of this winter past to global warming. Frankly, I believe global warming is a bunch of hooey, tales and theories composed by agendadriven-pseudo-scientists, spooky stories designed to strike fear into the hearts of those who cannot envision life without air conditioning, central heat, cell phones, malls, and Dr. Phil. The Earth experiences periods of warming, followed by stints of cooling, interspersed with episodes of “hotter than a pistol,” and “colder than a gravedigger’s toes.” Climate is historically cyclical and utterly unpredictable; in the long term, there is little the transient tinkerings of man can do to affect planetary ecology. After all, we’re just renters on the big blue ball. The guy who runs the universal utility company is likely not terribly concerned with our weather-mania, meteorological computer constructs, doomsday predictions, and media-enhanced hysteria.

Our expectations of what “should be” often supersede the reality of “what will, might, and could be.” This applies in equal measure to both the vagaries of climate and the vagaries of life. No matter how hard we want, wish, or desire, the only certain expectation is that our expectations may evolve in a surprising manner. All too often, we humans are inhabitants of the imagination rut, unable to shake off our preconceived notions and simply allow the future to unfold at its own pace. We enjoy pretending that we know it all, that our plans are iron-clad, that we control our own destiny. Perhaps we hold tightly to such addled convictions in order to avoid the frightening certitude that we are in charge of very little.

Personally, my crystal ball appears to have a broken defroster, the cherished glimpse into the unknown masked by veils of sleepy fog. My expectations are but bubbles rising to the surface of a bottomless pool. I wish it wasn’t so, and on the other hand, I’m glad I’m blissfully ignorant. In regard to the former, some certainty of the future would go far toward eliminating mindless fear and worry. In contemplation of the latter, knowing without doubt what tomorrow has in store would make life terribly boring. I’m approaching major changes, and as with all large jumps, one worries about missing the mark and spiraling into the void.

I’ve spent the last twelve months researching and writing a travel book, beginning with the first, terrifying, blank page and ending with a manuscript five hundred pages in length. I’ve never before attempted a tome of this sort or length, and now that I’ve reached the conclusion I find myself more perplexed than I did several hundred thousand words ago. My expectations are held at bay, for to allow them free rein could result in some nasty disappointments. I wonder if it will sell. I wonder if it will flop. I wonder what I will do next. A solid year of one’s life is a rather large investment, and looking back at my project and the literally thousands of hours of research, there are times I hope that it hasn’t been a wasted year.

Which leads me back to the topic of expectations. The time and effort would only be a waste if I base the book’s success on potential profits or the lack thereof. The expectation should not be whether reviewers applaud, or readers purchase, or publishers beg me to take on more titles. The expectation should be nothing more than the satisfaction of creating something that stretched my abilities and the remembrance of the joy that came with putting the final period on the final page.

Some days are hot, some are cold. Some days are new, some are old. But in the final analysis they are all just days. For best results they should not be viewed from the perspective of expectation.

Rather, they should be judged by how we handle the unexpected.

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