(Regarding the domain: GoDaddy suggested it and it was a lot cheaper than a .com–I am not currently a guru. Maybe someday.)
If you had asked me (as a child) what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d have probably said that I wanted to be a pro skateboarder or a park ranger or something.
I don’t like that question, and I don’t like that it is one of the most common questions that we ask young people. It suggests that we base our sense of worth and center our life goals on a career, and that our happiness should be linked to how useful we are to the economy. In practice (and according to all large-scale surveys on human happiness), we get our satisfaction from relationships with family and close friends, with nature, and with our personal passions (and it does not surprise me that, as a child, I would have wanted to pursue a personal passion or time spent in nature).
Instead, I ask myself questions such as, “Who do you want to be around?” and “Where do you feel at peace?” And my answer is that I want to be around my family and neighbors, and I feel at peace in my home and neighborhood. And then a wizard asked me what I wanted to do with the time that is given to me. And my answer is to be here, with them, going around doing the things that people do, that people have always done, and wait to see what happens next. To plant our garden every spring and harvest it in the fall. To pick the wild spring greens and colorful summer berries. To pull fresh fish from the river and fresh apples from our orchards. To walk in the snowy woods during winter, to gather firewood, to burn it and feel filled by its heat. All of the grandiose notions I may have had as a young and ambitious person have been tempered by experience. I’ve done a lot of cool, adventurous, and interesting things, but the coolest, most adventurous, and most interesting thing of all is to learn to be human. It didn’t come naturally to me. I’m still working on it.
If you want to know about my professional history (oh, I almost forgot that I’m officially “Dr. Crocker”), you can find my LinkedIn page. If you want to know my personal history, it is in all of the songs, poems, and stories I’ve already written. I’m not doing much to add to either of those resumes anymore.
Hey Jon. Stoked for u pal. im sure you remember me (pj) n my twin bro chris. Saying hi and glad u are doing well. I paint and write and make music n films myself stay busy most days. Lmk if u ever wanna give a listen or look at my artings! Still skateboarding too at age 42. Ttyl
Paul Cote’