Friday, July 26, 2013

Following Butterflies

When the adults in my childhood wanted to inject themselves into my world, they all seemed to have the same quiver of ice breakers they would pull conversation starters out of to initiate an interaction.  " Hi, what is your name?"  or Well now, aren't you growing like a weed?"  

The question that I remember as probably the dumbest question an adult could ask was, " What do you want to be when you grow up?"  When I first had to field this question I had not even gotten my head around the concept of "growing up".  I was still struggling with the notion of simply existing.  But like most kids, I wanted to please the adults in my life, so I would hem and haw for a a time and if they did not offer a suggestion I could jump on board with, I would say something like, a cowboy, a jet pilot, and sometimes an Indian  At the age of say 6, what I wanted to be depended on what I was into that week.

I never did find anything I wanted to be when I grew up.  Oh sure I flirted with this or that career choice in my mind, but when it came to doing something about it, I just fell back on my struggle to simply exist.  My road to where I am now was not a clean, straight run.  I followed butterflies.  Not one career, but several mini ones were used to pay my way.  Not one of them though did I ever feel was a true calling.  When I became tired of one butterfly, I would find another.

My road wandered aimlessly with no destination in sight.  There was always another butterfly around the next corner and there always will be.

Later...........................................

5 comments:

Kulkuri said...

You basically told my story. I never did figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Then again, maybe I never grew up, just grew old.

Reminded me of the song "Elusive Butterfly".

BBC said...

I wanted to be a carpenter and started in that trade when I got out of the Navy. Fate took me in another direction and for many years I was a master mechanic, in later years I jumped around a lot.

I took a picture of a butterfly on my trip to Montana last week.

Ol'Buzzard said...

We are all a product of chance and choices...
One of my favorite quotes:
"One and the same humanbeing is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different humanbeing." Solzhenitsyn

The picture is apropos: a butterfly can flap its wings in South America and cause a hurricane in the Atlantic. Who we are and where we are is a product of chaos.
the Ol'Buzzard

The Blog Fodder said...

There is a lot to be said for following butterflies. Dying in the house you were born in does not provide a very large outlook on life.

El Cerdo Ignatius said...

I never did find anything I wanted to be when I grew up. Oh sure I flirted with this or that career choice in my mind, but when it came to doing something about it, I just fell back on my struggle to simply exist.

Same brain. I'm telling you.