Well, clapper, you seem to have it right. The best advice I know is from Pasternak and if you don't have it, my gift to you:
IT IS NOT SEEMLY
It is not seemly to be famous,
Celebrity does not exalt;
There is no need to hoard your writings
And to preserve them in a vault.
To give your all---this is creation,
And not---to deafen and eclipse.
How shameful when you have no meaning,
And be on everybody’s lips.
Try not to live as a pretender,
But so to manage your affairs
That you are loved by wide expanses
And hear the call of future years.
Leave blanks in your life---not in your papers,
And do not ever hesitate
To pencil out whole chunks, whole chapters
Of your existence, of your fate.
Into obscurity retiring.
Try your development to hide,
As autumn mist on early mornings
Conceals the dreaming countryside.
Another, step by step, will follow
The living imprint of your feet;
But you yourself must not distinguish
Your victory from defeat.
And never for a single moment
Betray your credo or pretend.
But be alive---this only matters---
Alive and burning to the end.
If I may further embelish on King's quotation of the bard, I believe that this from Dylan Thomas has much meaning for those of us who relish what we do, collect what we really like, and hopefully pass on some useful knowledge to those who come after:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sung the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on it's way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men near death, who see with blinding sight,
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I know men half my age who live in such a narrow world and have little of interest beyond their job. They plod along day after day doing the same thing as the day before. Work, eat, watch TV, & sleep and when they reach the end they ask themselves: "Is That All There Was To Life?" No for me, I will not go gentle into that good night! I want to spend my last moments here on this earth discovering new things and doing the things that I enjoy with the folks that I enjoy doing them with.
I apologize if this was a bit O/T, but it made me feel good......Best Regards To All......George
