The Real Pleasures Of Life
Lileks has a wonderful Bleat up today on life, and taking the time to enjoy and appreciate it.
Because I’m young and stupid and the wrong things matter?
Not today. Today my daughter ran to me with open arms when I picked her up from school, and my dog barked when we both came home. Today was an ordinary day in the middle of an ordinary summer, and I have every reason to expect tomorrow will be the same. You don’t think that’s what happiness will be – you imagine the awards banquent, the press notices, the flattering faces in a Manhattan claque – but that’s the shape it takes. You can even chose an ordinary noisy moment – child leaping through the sprinkler while you stand over the grill making burgers, listening to some stranger on the radio name you the 10th best guest on the Hewitt show (tied with JPod!) and shouting SHUSH as Jasper runs for the gate because he’s heard your wife’s car pull up. That’s as good as it gets. You didn’t know how happy you were? Maybe you weren’t paying attention. So pay it.
Go read all of it. Yeah, I’m feeling sappy. Tough.
UPDATE: As Ken points out in the comments, I’m brutishly flaunting my joy in life. Heh.
Life | Mr. Bingley | 
July 13, 2005 8:45 am
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Stop brutishly flaunting your happiness! And sappiness!
Flaunt, flaunt, flaunt. I live in a 10 x 12 box with a shared kitchen and bathroom. Flaunt!
As usual, Lileks made my day. But I love how he goes into this incredible reflection on the blessings of his everyday life, then says “I have nothing to say,” and THEN adds twelve column-inches. AND he gets to have lunch with Mike “Broke the Hubble!” Nelson.
But I can forgive him anything, because even though he gets to hobnob with Hewitt and munch with Mike, he finds it much more satisfying to be Gnat’s dad.