Musings

The Measure of a Man

Posted at October 04, 2006 17:48

By Ron Marr

Almost twelve years ago to the day, I sat in a tattered chair, took a deep breath of crystal air, and gazed in awe at the moonlit outline of Ward’s Peak. I was living in a rented, tar-paper shack with an Irish Wolfhound puppy named Buffett, preparing to start a weekly newspaper with virtually no funds, and happy as a clam. I had never before lived in a place where the mountains hung right outside my window, never before neighbored against ragged spires of granite that seemed within arm’s reach, never before felt the invigorating, June chill of a Montana midnight at six thousand feet above sea level.

The mammoth sky of Big Sky Country winked seductively with a billion twinkling eyes, and for the first time in quite a few years, I felt the tension slide away from my neck and shoulders. I should have been wound up like a cheap clock — both my bank account and experience in running a one-man newspaper being next to nonexistent. Instead, I was immersed in a warm tide of calm. Whether I would succeed or fail never even entered my mind; all I knew was that I’d measured the life I’d been living and found it more than a few feet out of plumb.

In the here and now in Missouri, older and I hope a tiny bit wiser, it seems I’m still measuring things. These days though, the calibrations have taken on a different form. Mostly, I’ve been measuring the wood for that fence gate I’ve meant to build for the past two years. I’ve measured how much seed-corn the squirrels eat every week and how much bird chow disappears from the feeder. I’ve measured the length of my unruly beard, the water level on the Gasconade, and the time it takes to learn “St. James Infirmary” on the blues harp (the latter causing my dogs much auditory grief ).

Of course, these measurements are more vague and anecdotal than precise. They’re all ballpark, based on informed supposition, which is why I have crooked gates.

Still, I tend to believe the eyeball measurements are often more useful than the exact. At least, they seem more useful in the day to day, year to year process of living a life. We are all permitted to create and define our own form and style of estimates, guesstimates, appraisals, and reckonings, but some are better than others. Some are straight as a string, and some are formulated with a crooked yardstick. In truth though, the measurement itself is not as important as what we measure, and our interpretation of the findings.

We live in a world that moves at breakneck speed. This is fine if you’re going for a record on the Utah Salt Flats, but a tad dangerous when traversing the long and winding roads far more common to normal existence. The problem with uncontrolled velocity is that one tends to miss the details. When the only measurement involves getting from point A to point B with alacrity, too many roadside delights are lost to the jet stream. True of driving. True of living.

Sadly, many of our kind take measure of their life via how much they have or how much they can get. Often we measure by money, counting zeros as if they were of ultimate significance in terms of character, success, and self worth. Often we measure by status, adjudicating our accomplishments not from personal satisfaction but rather via the verdict of a collective and highly biased societal jury. We measure by fame, toys, and trinkets. We measure by how much work we can accomplish, by how many activities we can pack into a limited number of hours.

The problem with these superficial assessments is not that they are inherently bad; as part and parcel of a whole they are just dandy. The problem is that far too frequently they overshadow everything else. We adopt the habit of concentrating on only one thing, with the result being a life in a tunnel allowing us to only see one of a million possible lights.

Almost twelve years ago today, I traced the contours of Kidd Mountain and walked the banks of the Madison River for the first time. I started a little paper with several hopes, no money, and fewer expectations. If I’d ever stopped to measure the odds, I would have learned that the most likely outcome would have found me going bust in the first six weeks. Luckily, I only measured in retrospect.

That paper just published its final issue, put to bed by the folks to whom I sold it in 1999. It was a bit sad for me, having served as its editor from birth to death, but the swan song was merely one gradient in both its and my history. When I started that publication, pretty well known in the western states as The Trout Wrapper, I had taken measure of my life and found it wanting.

I take the same measure today, and I smile.

June 2006

Email this Article