also...this...

It may be watching the Tokyo 2020 games that causes this train of thought... AMBITION...some people have more or less a clear understanding of what they need to do to get from point A to B to Y. Life is happening along this trajectory and somehow, little by little, the results begin to show.For my profession, I find that my beliefs stemb towards making new pathways. So things like a promotion, or getting a P'hD or courting favors do not appear on my list of moves to get ahead. What are my moves to get ahead? Pretty much what I have been doing for decades, making work, getting work and doing my best to be a good saver. It isn't that I am not ambitious. I have been dealth a card or two that has led me to shrink my expectations and slow my plans. I would say that under the circumstances I am amazed at my attitude to still find myself excited about the works to come and keep me moving forward. I talk about eh Olympics but I think it may be a series that I have been looking at called Mysteries of the Abandoned. It is a fascinating series about structures that have been left to decay and discusses what they were used for and why. Of course a great deal of the architectural structures are from wars won and lost. It is shocking when you get the costs of so many of them. The figures are always in the billions or hundreds of millions of dollars in todays money. Many of them are left because a war has ended, or the technology changed so completely that the reason for the structure is no longer viable and is subsequently too costly to re-purpose or destroy. Seeing what looks like such waste, so much effort, so many people losing their lives to build tunnels into rock. Or to build steel bridges to nowhere, it oddly puts my own desires into perspective. We are all here for a short time. One day you are young and many days after you are very old. We all go in the same direction. I think that what is equally as important as having plans for your own accomplishments is also having accomplishments for your plans that have nothing to do with money. Those moments that are impossible to quantify are so important. I love when I am with my daughter for example and in the middle of a moment I know that I have captured the sublime and I just ride through it. Almost like a scent of lavender, or roses in the air. Or a butterfly floating by.