Monday Aphorism: Impasse

October 4, 2010 in aphorisms, Next Places by Harvey | 3 comments

H (age 30).  Help! I am stuck. I am at the end of my rope. Running about the edges of a cul-de-sac, I have seen what there is so many times, I forget to look because it is all memorized. Help me! I want to get out of here.
H (age 70).  Really? That’s too bad. Why don’t you just stop. Get off, get out. What’s the problem?
H (30). Help me! I’ve put in so much time, energy, my life. My life…is here. I can’t get out, can’t give up.
H (70).  Are you stuck on being stuck? Have you fallen in love with what you are doing so that finishing, at this point, will leave you with nothing to do? Are you afraid to hang your work out in public like Monday’s wash? They’ll find out it’s you, you know. The torn and tattered underwear will give you away.
H (30).  But I want it to be right. No mistakes. I’ve put so much time in this. Help me!
H (70).  O.K. I’ll help. But only if you stop at this task of fifty years which you want done yesterday. You took on a difficult task. What did you expect, you thirty-year-old genius? Mistakes, embarrassment? Too bad. You wanted to be very good, but didn’t expect the high prices?  Everything’s inflated, especially your ego dancing still, just above the plateau of the do-able. Easier to deflate your ego than to complete this task? The impasse is you…not your work.
 

  • Karl Rogers

    Excellent. Very, very sharp aphorism.

  • Calvin Rosewater

    How does one deflate an ego while trapped in a place that cannot be understood until one is further along the life path? Can one achieve wisdom without the failures and tribulations of youthful narcissism?

  • Harvey Sarles

    Yeah! Maybe “have a conversation” with your 70-year-old self, projected foward. How to go about that…? Or come and talk with me, and my view from age – now 77. Or…?

    Wisdom is more a map, studies of others…and oneself fairly continually; Zarathustra’s Mountain – ask me for a copy.
    Harvey