I sit in the Vino Volo wine bar at the Oakland airport milking the last minutes from a vacation tacked onto the holiday break…. Who would want this to end? I am buying another ticket to Denial Land. Where did I miss the line to stand in for the life of idle independent wealth?
Oh well.
There is one more air flight, one more two hour drive, a load of laundry, and a nights sleep between me and the reality of 2011.
No.
I am not wasting time here with tired resolutions (I find they work better as secret bets with one self).
Yet I can see in the hazy Mississippi mist (imagined) ahead are The Crossroads (R. Johnson, 1936).Â
Maybe it’s that white guy approaching 50 thing that ends up with me looking pathetic in a red convertible.
No.
But I feel as though I have been comfortably zooming along the highway of life, enjoying the scenery going by. And while a nice view, I find myself…. yawning.
In the world of my work, the technology has moved at that faster than safe speed limit, accelerating madly into the curves, top down, and pedal pressed. But take that out of the sector education I’ve been driving through, and from 10,000 feet (or 100) nothing much has changed. I’ve read an article recently about all the changes that have happened to all industries, and the author includes education. I could not disagree more. The system, process, goals, constraints, mechanics, philosophies have not changed one bit since I sat in a tab armed chair in a lecture Hal in the 1980s.
So up ahead is that intersection; do I just keep even pressure on the accelerator and continue the cruise in the safety lane? I don’t know, but I am thinking more about the curvy mountain roads to the left, and the sandy beach road on the right.
And here it is– 2011. Do cozy up and embrace the status quo?
I just might.Â
Or not.
My plan for this year is to turn it up past 11 (borrowing from the holiday card Marco Torres shared on Flickr). When I get the chance to blog, speak etc this year, the leather gloves are off.Â
I am unleashed.
And I am turning it up to 2011.
Rock on, one of my favorite things about Italy, was driving there, the roads were intense, and forced me to get ou of my SUV comfort zone. Drive a tiny 5speed Hyundai with 3 kids, no real safety measures, and a sense of complete lunacy. Can’t say it sucked.
Taking the gloves off is the only way to live—do not go gently into that good night.
Can I just say: hell yeah!