Mark Rober is someone who deserves all the attention he gets. His goofy experiments and builds are vehicles, not only for expertly simplified science lessons, but an outlook on the world that is full of hope and goodness. This TED talk that he gave is very worth watching - as is pretty much everything else I've ever seen of his - but I particularly want to draw out one of his conclusions:
"Often in life we tell ourselves that the top version is what we want... but that's boring. If that were a real video game or a book or a movie and that went out to the market it would be a total failure. Nobody would buy it. Where the risk and the reward? Where's the challenge? There's no feeling of satisfaction. The bottom picture is real life and that's not a bug, that's a feature. Think about anything that means anything to you in life... I can guarantee you that it came from something that looks like the bottom and not the top"
Today I reread my journal of the time I've spent here so far (I journal a LOT, it may or may not have taken several hours to read). That's where I came across this note from Mark Rober's TED talk and I think it's not only a vastly beautiful lens to reflect on gratitude today, it's also one of the more important perspectives a person can have on life.
This time I'm spending, literally living out one of my pipe dreams is a good reminder to me that, as cool as my plan for my life might have been, the life I am actually living is so much wilder and dearer and more beautiful. And honestly, there is plenty of this precious time I have here in Florence that I am wasting. I'm tired or I'm distracted or I'm stuck on my stupid screens. My daily life is still filled up with daily things and there are drudgeries and anxieties just like there are at home.
But real life in all of its grittiness and frustrations and even sufferings is what is beautiful. Maybe that's mostly because the people who inhabit reality are, well, real. And, as usual, as I delve into my gratitude lists this Thanksgiving, that's what dominates. All the wild, weird, wonderful people who make up this life that I love, who have made me who I am. I love you all and you will always be what I am the most grateful for.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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