The Bucket List

[dave lackey]

Oh, man, how do I hate that title.😡

But, it seems to have a bit of truth nowadays. I have been thinking more about the time I have remaining and what I would like to do and experience. Things that I have always wanted to do but, never gotten around to doing it.

I have a Top 3 List that I will keep private for now.

What is on your Bucket List?🙄

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Dave,

If you haven't found the time/money before about 50, you probably won't. Either it'll be too much trouble, or you'll have changed.

Cheers,

R.

 

[robklurfield]

Roger, that's an uncharacteristically depressing post from you. At 50 myself, I'd better have some new adventures to look toward. However, you're right: time's a wasting.

Dear Dave,

If you haven't found the time/money before about 50, you probably won't. Either it'll be too much trouble, or you'll have changed.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Rob,

It's very far from an absolute. If I thought I'd never do anything new again that I'd enjoy, I'd find it hard to rule out immediate suicide.

But I got it from someone here on RFF, I think. We all think "I'd like to do this when I'm older" but find that when we are older, we have changed. Or the ambition has changed.

Far better to set NEW goals as you get older, and drop the ones you don't need (thanks for helping me clarify this) rather than pretending you're still 20 (or indeed 40).

It's good to try to analyze those goals, too. If I were 20 I'd have asked my 'adopted daughter' Aditi to marry me by now, and I'd have tried very hard to get her into bed. But I'm not, and I haven't. I'm 60 next birthday and I've got Frances and I've got the most wonderful daughter in the world. (All loving fathers say that, including adoptive ones.)

Cheers,

R.

 

[reala_fan]

I see what Roger means. I used to want to walk the Appalachian Trail.

I didn't do it before I was fifty, and now...sleeping on the ground for a month and a half does not sound like fun to me....at all.

...

 

[Roger Hicks]

I've had a happy, exciting and very eventful life and I'm certainly content with how I live now. It's a pity that Roger's life is so sad that he would suicide if nothing different comes along. I never had a daughter (only sons) though I've never thought of pedophilia.

No, Ruby, you're the one with the sad life.

Why do you read paedophilia into the idea that a 20-year-old might fall in love with another 20-year-old? Presumably you have forgotten what it's like to be 20 -- I can remember only too well. Your definition of 'paedophilia' is in any case interesting. Is a 20-year-old a child? Especially to another 20-year-old?

I do actually believe there are new and exciting things to do in the future; just that they're not always the same things I wanted to do when I was younger. That was pretty much the point of my earlier posts in this thread. You are happy never to consider anything new? That really IS sad.

I realize that you're not actually reading what I write, but only what you think I ought to write, so your opinion is not all that important. Perhaps you might try harder next time.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Correction.

In my last post "pedophilia" should read "incest".

Do you know Healey's Law of Holes?

When you're in a hole, stop digging.

When I got to know Aditi, she was 18. She's the daughter of a very old friend, and she was born on my 40th birthday.

As I got to know her, I fell hopelessly in love with her -- as if she were my own daughter. Hence the use of quotation marks in 'adopted daughter', and the explanatory comments thereafter. She is neither daughter nor adopted, but I feel towards her as if she were; and if I were her age, I'd be in love with her in quite a different way.

I was discussing this with her father a couple of days ago. We agreed that I had a great advantage in NOT having had to bring her up; indeed, in not having met her until she was twelve (her father and I lost track of one another for over a decade).

Someone who cannot distinguish between paedophilia and incest is not only failing to read my posts: he (or she) is also somewhat shaky on the English language. Of course, if you are willing to believe the worst of someone, merely because you want to, it is quite likely to cloud your judgement.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Ducky]

Talk about a wrong turn!!!

Anyway, back to the topic.
I look at it another way, I went to places and did things when I was young that I would like to do again, only this time pay more attention. Sadly, some of the places I went no longer exist.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I look at it another way, I went to places and did things when I was young that I would like to do again, only this time pay more attention. Sadly, some of the places I went no longer exist.

Yes. And some places that we wanted to visit (but didn't) never existed in our lifetime. I always wanted to go to the South Seas -- until I realized in my 20s that the South Seas I dreamed about, and had read about as a boy, had probably vanished by the 1920s, even though vestiges still existed when my father was there in the 1960s.

Sometimes, though, I do manage to revisit places, and to pay more attention. For me, Malta is the most shining example: http://www.semiadventuroustraveler.com/pst malta.html. I lived there as a small boy in the 1950s and have been back several times since 1990.

Cheers,

R.

 

[dave lackey]

Ahhh... back OT...

I agree, Roger, that things change and am reminded everyday. Many of the things I used to badly want (expensive cars, high-paying job, etc.) have no meaning for me anymore. I do cherish many old things and memories of people and places. But, what is on my list...

Well, I will reveal them one by one as I think through all of this...I have expanded my list to Top 5!

Bucket List Item #5:

Learn two more languages... French and German. Should not be too hard doubling my bi-linguallity (is that a word?) LOL....😀

What is the best way to do this on a budget?😕

 

[dave lackey]

Bucket List Item #4:

Actually, I am a bit torn between the two, but maybe they work together well enough...

-Learn large format photography and printing with platinum processing.

I am very excited about this possibility as early as later this year!😉

 

[shadowfox]

If you gentlemen have not yet seen UP, run, don't walk to rent/buy it now 🙂

One of the most uplifting and sweet film related to the topic at hand.

 

[shadowfox]

Bucket List Item #4:

-Learn large format photography and printing with platinum processing.

I am very excited about this possibility as early as later this year!😉

Dave, too bad you're in Georgia, if you were in Texas, we may do this together 🙂

 

[steamer]

Just because your list changes when you get older doesn't mean you can't have one. I'm getting older but just off the top of my head; I'd like to earn a decent living again someday, and want to learn Russian and Mongolian and to become fluent in Japanese. Getting physically fit again was a dream so now I'm working on that.　

I wanted to watch all of the greatest films, I'm doing that now (UP was wonderful, by the way). I want to travel absolutely everywhere, and I've yet to create my masterpiece. This list is endless and age is a handicap but it doesn't mean you can't dream.

I'm by no means the "Man of La Mancha," but I too want to know about your bucket list dreams, impossible and otherwise (please none that involve exchange of bodily fluids). So post em if you got em.

 

[Leigh Youdale]

I'm not sure I've got enough time left over after doing the housework! 🙂

Let's see;
I want to go to Umbria and Tuscany on a photographic trip.
Going to Paris, Ireland and the UK again in 2011.
Going to NZ in October and the Kimberley sometime before that.
I have a (share in) a powered glider that I fly regularly, I have a couple of kayaks, a nice new bicycle and a new Subaru is arriving next week. Last one is ten years old, done 250,000 km and still going strong but I wanted to wear the new one out before I stop driving. Figure that's about 10+ more years.
I play harmonica in a band at least twice a week.
I'd really like to air condition my darkroom (laundry) so I can work in it during summer (or build a new darkroom altogether).
Belong to two camera clubs.
Two lovely daughters, now living independently.
A wife who loves teaching so much she's still at it full time at nearly 66 yrs.
I'm (sort of) retired at 71 but they keep calling me back and I'm off to the WA goldfields in May for two weeks doing mine safety audits.
I'm sure there's something else, but I'm lucky to have good health and some diverse interests that keep me hopping along.

And that brings me to a point Roger alluded to. I'm an atheist. That could be a bleak place to inhabit if you're into navel contemplation but with interests and things to do (too many sometimes) you just think "life is great" and get on with it. One day it won't be for some reason and then it's time to look at the alternative. I'm with Roger - it's not a very attractive one at present.

 

[Roger Hicks]

One has to be open to totally new and unexpected things, too -- Aditi being a good example. I never understood why anyone wanted children, but then by chance Frances and I acquired an 'adopted daughter' when I was 58 and Aditi was 18. I'm still glad I didn't have to bring her up but now I understand a lot more about why people feel the way they do about children.

Or for a completely different example, I used to dislike Spain, and regard it merely as an inconvenient intermediate stage on the way to Portugal. But Spain has changed since 1982, and so have I, so I now go there willingly and indeed enthusiastically: http://www.semiadventuroustraveler.com/semi place spain.html

Most of the things I like doing, I've been doing for a long time. I took up both motorcycling and photography in '66/67; my first experience of international travel was at the age of 2 and I've been doing it ever since. Among the countries I haven't visited, I probably won't get to Albania or the Ukraine this year but they're both on my list. I shall however be going to Arles and to Photokina. Last year my list of new countries included Croatia, Serbia, Kosova and Macedonia, plus revisiting Italy, Slovenia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria and Switzerland.

My problem with a 'bucket list' is that as far as I understand it, the phrase refers to things you want to do before you kick the bucket. I've done a lot of them; some (like travel) are merely variations on a theme; and some are more or less beyond my control, such as having at least one novel published (written, and currently seeking an agent).

So I don't work on a 'before I die' timescale. I work on the next couple of years, and I know that plans can and do change. I'd quite like to get back to India, for example, but equally, I've been there quite a few times, and driving to the Baltic States is probably easier and possibly as interesting (I don't know, I've never been to the Baltic States).

EDIT: Ultimately, I suppose, my ambition is to spend more time on the things I DO want to do, and less on the things I DON'T want to do. Unfortunately, some of the things I want to do have the unfortunate correlation that I sometimes have to do things I don't enjoy, such as driving through Italy to get to Slovenia. Next time I'll go via Switzerland.

Cheers,

R.

 

[dave lackey]

Bucket List Item #3:

Ahhh...the top 3 are giving me problems. I have always wanted to learn certain musical instruments: piano, violin, etc.

Then again, I really would like to learn oil painting.

Okay, then,

Oil painting! As an architectural student many years ago, I learned freehand drawing and rendering with pencil, chalk, ink, pastels and watercolors... but never tried oil painting. Yeah, that's it!🙂

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

This time last year, I came very,very close to giving that bucket a kick! - and am just getting back to something approaching 'normality'. I'm in my late sixties, but have always been fit, and up to about ten years ago was still cycle touring and time trialing, so never thought for a moment that my ticker would suffer a blockage!. I recall our late friend Al Kaplan posting one time - that the doc had just pronounced him fit, and "good for another thirty years", so my experience and that of poor Al keeps me in mind of how fragile our walk can be.
Back to the topic - I am now so glad that I can still walk the moors and coastline with my camera again, (although I take things easier now!) I don't even worry when the pictures are few, or of poor quality (often!) I just savour the outings. So all that's on my wish list right now is the two weeks trip to southern Turkey that's booked in May, and - hopefully to meet Roger and a few others at Arles in July! 🙂.....as the song says - "one day at a time...sweet Jesus......"
Dave.

 

[steamer]

A human body is not a good place to hide out from death. Good for a lot of other things but not that.

Roger's remarks about children echo my own, love my adopted daughter unconditionally, she is about as odd a person as I've ever met, but a really good kid. loves her to bits, I'm tempted to have one of my own before it's too late.

The before you die part of the bucket list is the only time we've got this go round. A lot of things we want to do are out of our "control" but so what, that's what makes things interesting. Of course everybody works on timescale of a few years or more, nobody expects to "wake up dead" tomorrow, and we all need to figure out how to keep a roof over our heads etc., but speaking for myself : "Man got to do what a man's got to do."

Life is precious, oil painting is cool but the medium is just a tool for visual expression go get a pencil or a stick of graphite or a set of marking pens if you can't come up with the bucks for brushes, paints and canvas or whatever. put finger to sand if you must.

What I mean to say say is do what you need to while you are in this precious human existence and trust yourself and be good to others. OK if I need to be taken down a peg for pretending to know what I'm talking about then go ahead.

 

[Phil_Lowe]

See the Northern Lights.
Go to South America.
Visit Shanghai. (going there this September so this will need updating when I get back)