My blog performance has fallen pretty far behind my aspirations. I think of the words of 19th century renaissance man author and cuisine technologist Robert Browning, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?”
The “Ah,” is the genius part, don’t you think? And this while developing methods of creating a nice umami crust to your meats.
I have used this quote as a justification for sloth and failure since pre-bar mitzvah years. “Of course I’m not my idealized self! D’uh!” I’m just good enough to stand living with myself and, believe me, it took some drastic reductions of standards to get that far.
So I might have written about the strange absence of gazpacho and pan tomate on the Costa Blanca. I might have written about how we’ve worked out beach use on beaches that don’t permit Mel. I might have written on the miraculous omnipresence of Dover Sole Meurniere and barbouni. I might have written about reading Gogol while standing nipple deep in the pool. I might have written about the strange sensation a borough kid feels while eating eggs, fruits and vegetables cultivated on his own property.
I might have focused on Jolean and not my own lint-filled navel. I really should. That she loves me is the top thing on my CV. That may have to wait for heaven too.
I could start with today, feeling the bends of less than a week back in NYC. Or the inconveniences of living in a “staged” apartment while it’s on the market.
Is any of this interesting in the least?
” Was his aching soul thereby revealing the doleful mystery of its illness—that the lofty inner man who was beginning to be built in him had had no time to form and gain strength; that, not tried from early years in the struggle with failure, he had never attained the lofty ability to rise and gain strength from obstacles and barriers; that, having melted like heated metal, the wealth of great feelings had not been subjected to a final tempering, and now, lacking resilience, his will was powerless.”
Not quite on the money but close enough.
I’m going to add one more quote on, I guess you would say, ambition:
“Anyone whose goal is ‘something higher’ must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.” ―Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
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