Posted: Feb 22, 2020 11:41 pm
theropod_V_2.0 wrote:Maybe folks will not be so skeptical when I say I’ve lived more in one lifetime than most men could with three. Grand highs and lows, with stupendous successes and abysmal failures. I’ve done all sorts of work from shoveling cow shit to preparing tyrannosaur fossils. I’ve broken bones and suffer traumatic wounds. I’ve crawled through human waste in a steaming jungle to catch a word of Slavic where it should never be spoken. I’ve achieved mastery in wood working to the point of installing a huge hand made parquet floor in Winthrop Rockefeller’s private office. I’ve been shot at more than once, had motor vehicle wrecks that should have killed me and learned a few programming languages. I’ve mined placer gold by hand for 9 months high in the Cascade mountains, and found tiny rough diamonds here in Arkansas. I’ve pastored a Baptist church, and I’ve been a fool and a genius in the same day. I’ve lost in love on a major way (see above) and found the best partner possible. I’ve had my nose absolutely smashed by a hulk of a man, and felled similar giants with blinding fast moves. Mistakes were more common than getting it right, but I did learn to learn from those errors, and strive daily to remember those jagged edges.
In the end, I have few regrets. Mostly I wish I had applied myself to my schooling more deeply, and settled on paleontology when I was learning such things as ancient greek to better understand mythology.
RS
Hell, I've only done a few of those things. Owing to my youth, of course.