Journeys, projects, voyages and art -- another random thought

A project brought the train of thought to mind, but they all have a certain progression in common. There is always the optimism of beginning and jumping in. But not too long after that comes the realization stage. A friend once described it as this: We were beginning an ocean voyage and he apologized right off the dock. What he said was please be aware that about a day or so into this I will go into kind of a funk. It was when he realized having done this before he had just done it to himself again, committed with no way out. On this particular voyage it was my first offshore and I didn’t get it, but later in life as I embarked on journeys of one sort or another I did. Building houses comes to mind after the few first boards are laid on the foundation and I was left alone to finish the house, knowing how long it was going to take there was always a moment of depression. It happened in writing as well; at the beginning I could see the end, but a week or so into it I could only see a year of writing ahead. I think that was at least part of what caused my loss of interest. Not only did I see a year of writing ahead, but I was unhappy with what I had done already and I didn’t like the main character and he was based on me. Then life stepped in and piled on, and I never really went back to it. But that gets off the subject. Once you get past that initial realization about the monumental task in front of you, you shrug your shoulders and go for it, knowing it is the only way it will get done and for the time being it is your way of life, your raison d'etre and from then on you separate the project into incremental, attainable goals, a floor laid, a page written, a waypoint on a voyage passed and life goes one small step at a time working toward the whole. When the project is finished, the house built, the voyage completed, the book written, in this case the living room remodeled, there is a moment of satisfaction, a moment of accomplishment, a moment of achievement, but those moments are fleeting.

It was after I completed this most recent project, the living room floor and trim that I realized the last step in the process. Of course there are always a few odds and ends to complete yet, you have to clean the boat, polish up some spelling and grammar, still put down a little trim here and there but for the purpose of the project that moment comes when you have the feeling (and relief) of completion.

Sitting on the couch looking over this most recent one it hit me and as I thought back through others they all had this same aspect in common. The realization is that despite all you are feeling you have accomplished, life has not changed in any meaningful way. I was sitting on the same couch, watching the same tired television shows I had watched when there was a ratty old carpet under me instead of a brand new laminate floor. It happened, I realized in all the houses I built, at the end of every voyage and eventually at the end of every book: No matter what the accomplishment life did not change. The next day I woke up alone, went to work, came home, turned on the television and went to sleep as I had every working day since this latest period in my life began, I suppose that is to be expected, but in my mind it seems life should change in some dramatic way somehow. It doesn’t.

What has me wondering now is what happens at the end of the global journey, the entire project. Do I sit somewhere drooling in a wheelchair wondering if at the dock after the voyage through life, completing the last chapter, I am left with the same feeling? Does it mean that for all of it, nothing really changes despite your tenure on earth?

The realization stage with only a couple of sticks of baseboard to go.

And one more random thought having to do with the solstice. My niece who was here this summer wrote a happy solstice note and said she couldn’t believe it has been six months already since her trip. When someone talks about the rapid passage of time I usually remind them that each passing year is a smaller percentage of the whole life and as those percentages grow smaller and smaller time seems to pass more swiftly. So maybe it all comes to this, time really does move faster with age and the end comes when we reach escape velocity and what amounts to a soul spins off into space.