Happiness by degrees
October 18, 2009
There's something about wanting more that makes us human. Dreaming, maybe. Always grasping at that next step, that glowing orange-purple horizon that seems so close. It's funny where we are never seems to be where we wanted to be, and yet, somehow, we keep moving forward. Happiness by degrees, I suppose.
I finish Jailbird for the second time, and set it down. It makes me wistful. I look at the picture of Kurt Vonnegut on the jacket; he's wrinkled and tanned and leaking cigarette smoke in lingering clouds. I'll buy a picture of him I think, and put it on my wall in a little apartment in South America. Him and others, of course - there are so many great writers. I'll write there every day, and surf and sun bathe, too.
For now, I've a set of articles on airport transportation that need finishing. Baby steps.
On my nightstand is my passport, I got it today. A plane ticket. There lies my next horizon. Of course, the moment I step into it, it won't be my horizon anymore. Some new, orange haze will start to glow just out of my reach, right around the next bend. And so it goes.
Tags for this piece: vonnegut reading travel change writing progress