I watched a sharply-dressed old[er] man riffle through his pouch of SA Lotto tickets on the bus today, and my heart sunk deep into my stomach while I considered the possible extent of this action. What kind of life is it if all it becomes is the hope for something that is impossibly valuable and equally improbable?

No, I would much rather devote hard work, late nights and well-thought investment into the preservation and security of my future. Surely more can be earnt by calculated outcome rather than unlikely gambled results?

There comes a time in our meandering lives when the activities we pursue become as “world class” as any other or any other’s. We seem to live out our formative years and then begin to reach (or perhaps approach) a life-stage when all of our happenings become part of a set of normal actions that each of us as grown human beings might come across. At this stage, none of these events is better or worse than any other, from the viewpoint of worldly significance.

Payrise. Graduation. Employment. Weekend. Movie. Girlfriend. Travel. Wife. Kids. Mortgage. Car. In-laws. Dog. Christmas.

Life.

At a time not too far removed from the aforementioned world class “initiation”, we also take a step out into a wider world of freedom, responsibility and personal significance. Some would take this for granted, whereas I’ve become keenly aware of the quaint stillness of being “in-between”. Nearly all of my possessions are within ten metres, and most of them are right in this very [bed/study/lounge/media]-room. Oddly enough, this room is taking on another nounal descriptor: holding. Occasionally I feel as if I am being held here, even if only in a self-perpetuated manner, with no other place to venture which doesn’t involve some level of undesirability.

So here I make my home, largely, and await the day of making the same with more than just one room.

it’s cold and dark outside
and I feel dark and cold
solitude is too kind a word
for what is mere “alone”

not inspired to seek to talk
when chatter seems so bland
I long for some unique thrill
a word, a tone, a song

so let the dark wind blow
exhilarate and entice
until then I sleep unsound
unwilling to let go

Life tends to blur once work starts its repetitive cycle and the milestones of childhood fade into distant memory. It is the challenge of our time to maintain a balanced sense of significance when all else seems mundane…

What did Abraham Lincoln think about on his 21st birthday? How extensive was Karl Barth’s understanding of theology when he was 18? Did anyone expect Einstein to amount to anything when he was 15? 20? Who is today aged 21¾ and in 30 years may be the President of the United States, or a multi-million-dollar CEO, or a father of 3?

Well, I can’t aspire to be the first of that list of three. The other two form part of an unending possibility…

It’s incredible to think that each of the prominent figures in the history of the world had a formative early life, a teenage learning period, a set of moulding circumstances. So here am I. What will I do today that has an outworking in 30 years’ time? What should I do today?

There is sometimes a sense of life balanced on a knife’s edge, and precariously at that. But for brief moments, and usually at long intervals only, it seems that the future opens out and the possibilities are spread to a perpetual horizon. So many different paths, and yet our actions decide at every instant the process of our journey. Some flicker and fade as we choose other ways, but still more ever-branching avenues of potential eventuality blink into view.

So it’s clear to me that anything can happen. Life is still what you make of it today. An incredible opportunity.