Trying to Make Good

Always planning makes possible. My father called his workplace his study. That's what I call mine, though besides books (philosophy, literature, science, naturalism, religion, history, mathematics, fishing...), hundreds of handwritten journals, a fishing log, and loads of unbound papers all over my desk and in various unkempt piles--there's fishing equipment sort of scattered all over. Also old coins, select beer bottles I've kept as souvenirs, seashells of stunning colors and patterns, printed photographs framed and hung on the walls, etc. I think there's a geode in an obscure corner that weighs at least 50 pounds. Drawings I've created over the years. I've neatly taped to a wall a printout of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," which appears there in a clean appealing way, as if anyone would read the lines, recognize the tune, and say, "Aha, I understand a little about this man's ironic obscurity." The coins I've mostly bought in neat little cardboard frames with cellophane to view through; some I've ripped open so I can have the coin itself here or there, just as if I might pocket to spend it. I just picked one up from in front of me...1856. Half dollar.

If I'm eccentric, I don't feel that way. So as far as I'm concerned, I'm not.

But about the planning, that's what so many of the unbound papers have to do. Plans constantly shifting, but since they're updated day to day, I manage to survive and even thrive. I'm hoping a healthy percentage of my plans--though this is hard to account for as a percentage, because as I say, the plans are almost as fluid as water....well, let's just say they get wet--I'm hoping that over the course of the year ahead, my fishing outings mesh well. That involves me as just an ordinary guy passionate about being fully there as I fish and catching the fish I catch...it's about time I start catching again...and as someone really trying to make good on this activity.


Here it is about an hour later, and since I'm tempted to add more, I skipped an extra line to emphasize the transition. Jesus Christ purportedly said, "I will make you fishers of men," and I consider this ancillary to my reported observation of fishing equipment spread all about this intellectual's Wolf Den. (That's more or less what the proper name of Aristotle's Lyceum means.) What catches me about Jesus's statement is omission of--what for? Catch men. To what purpose? To die? Just go to heaven? Or do I omit "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light," as if this is sufficient to imply purpose here on earth? Is it?