#4 - Carpe Diem

Greetings Beautiful People

Thanks for all the positive feedback - I realise I haven't asked any of you if it's cool for me to inflict myself upon you on a weekly basis but I'm hoping this is inspiring or at least mildly entertaining. If you would like me to stop emailing you however, please just let me know.

I'm enjoying The Weekly Wonder so much it's fast becoming the highlight of my week. I started writing this entry (entitled Carpe Diem) 4 days ago and soon afterwards I outlined several other titles/ideas. In fact en route to work this morning I was thinking about which subject to choose when I walked past a bus shelter (see pic attached) and that made the decision for me :-)

1) QOTW

“If one advances confidently in the direction of one’s dreams and endeavours to live the life one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
Henry David Thoreau


2) Story - 14 Days to Live
I was talking to my friend T a few months back. He said one of his colleagues was just diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and told he had two weeks to live. When T asked him what he was going to do he just stood there with a faraway look in his eyes:

"...I'm planning my funeral."

He was 30 years old. He'd been with the same girl since the age of 15, the only girl he'd ever been with. He didn't smoke or drink. T said he was that clean-living guy in the office that drank smoothies in the morning. He decided to live what life he had left to the fullest. He went to Amsterdam, he experimented with a few things which aren't legal in this country (and one or two things that aren't legal anywhere) but the point is he decided to go out with a bang on his own terms.

When I first heard about this guy something about the story really moved me. I thought about how hard that reality must have been to accept but how once he'd come to terms with it, the incredible clarity it must have given him. My first instinct was to meet him and speak with him, record him speaking about what he'd learned and to feature it as part of a song. I thought it would be powerful to immortalize the words of someone who really knew firsthand the fragility of life and how much we take for granted. I mentioned this idea to a friend who thought it would be insensitive (and I suspect mental) so I second-guessed myself and if I’m honest I probably used my friend’s opinion as an excuse to procrastinate. 

3 weeks later I asked T what had become of his colleague. I’d decided to give it a go and I wondered if the diagnosis might not have been 100% accurate.

Needless to say, I was too late.

3)   Song - Hands of Time by Groove Armada w/Richie Havens (RIP)
 

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do begin it. Boldness has genius power and magic in it.”Johann Wolfgang Von Goetthe

Blessings

Dx