I have been reading this Zen habits site for a week or so and it was starting to bother me: I felt like I was being lectured or admonished, gently but repeatedly. It seemed like everything that was recommended as Good was the opposite of what I was doing. On the verge of unsubscribing — who needs that much aggro? — when this was the link of the day:
Design Your Life: What Would You Do If You Had Nothing To Do?:
What would you be doing tomorrow if you retired today?
Let’s say you had a blank day staring at you. You didn’t have to work. You could do anything at all (although money is still a limiting factor). What would your perfect day be like?
These questions are more than just hypothetical questions to ask for fun or idleness. It’s an exercise meant to get you thinking about designing your life.
Well, that’s an obvious question or exercise that I think I am ready to tackle.
I figure that in two years, with my young charges in a middle school that’s within walking distance, my chauffeuring and field-trip chaperoning days will be at an end. As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree is a year ago: the next best time is now. So in a year or two’s time, what seeds will I want to have planted?
I think it’s safe to say my days on toiling on the front lines of the Internet are over, unless someone somewhere needs a museum exhibit of late-20th c. knowledge.
I am clearing out some surplus photo equipment this weekend, in hopes of getting organized. I have two old small-medium format enlargers to give away, and that will make room for the large-format one I got a couple of weeks back. Haven’t had room to uncrate it. Once that’s sorted, I can make some prints and see what, if anything, I have learned and more importantly, what I still have to learn.
Next up, make a few prints, mat and mount them, and see if I can get them hung anywhere. Coffee shops abound, and one near me always has local artists on display.
Do I think I can make a living at this or even contribute to the household economics? Bearing in mind the difference between a fine art photographer and a large pizza — the pizza will feed four — I have no illusions, but it’s certainly worth trying. I get enough encouragement from people who see the stuff I do, after all.
So making pictures and getting them in front of people is one goal.
Next, some physical actitvity, beyond dusting off the bicycles. Is a Brooks saddle what it takes? So be it. But it will be a used one, so no cow need be sacrificed for my comfort. I just put a couple on my watch list on eBay.
I have seen several XtraCycles this past week, and I’m getting a strong vibe that one of those is in my future. If that works as I hear, I can do a lot of my errands on that, since the main thing I need a motor vehicle for is to carry people.
But just getting outside would be a positive step. So perhaps I’ll do that now and come back to this later, when I have thought some more about it.