Now We Are Six When I was one I'd just begun,
When I was two I was nearly new,
When I was three I was hardly me,
When I was four I was not much more,
When I was five I was barely alive,
But now I am six! As clever as clever!
And I think I'll stay six now for ever and ever!
A. A. Milne
what is it about birthdays.. you expect them to be special, to be great, to be somehow different, but the fact is they are arbitrary. A day. That could be any other day. And you are celebrating what?
Not dead yet?
That's actually probably the best thing to celebrate, worthy of being celebrated everyday.
As camus said,
"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest-whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories-comes afterwords. These are games; one must first answer."
And he is right-- and it's not morbid at all. Once one has decided to live, what else matters? Not much, just that you live well, and avidly.
So what am I nattering on about anyhow? I've turned 38, and unlike everyone else I freak out two years early rather than freak out at the year ending in zero. It makes sense to me, I've got only two years to accomplish everything I want to have done by 40... quick, quick, do something.
But if all I want to accomplish to is to live, and live fully, why worry?
It's sunny here, and I'm dashing between meetings and should be scribbling out focal reviews rather than blogging, and yet... I'm 38. What do I want to be when I grow up? and is that going to happen soon? Should I finish my masters, write another book, have a baby, buy a house, run away to tibet...????
perhaps i should stick with six. I can be clever forever.
An interesting if rather academic article: FAST (FACETED APPLICATION OF SUBJECT
TERMINOLOGY): A SIMPLIFIED LCSH-BASED VOCABULARY
"With the phenomenal growth of electronic resources and the emergence of numerous
metadata schemes for their description, there is a need, particularly, for subject access
methods that can handle a large volume of materials without incurring the same amount
of effort and cost as in the treatment of traditional library materials."
and this means facets!