There is a word used by WANNA Bes and
some people in the Media, called the “BUCKET LIST”. It is usually taken to
mean, something you wish to do or see in your lifetime, and the sooner, rather
than later the better! Once they have seen or done it, the extroverts announce
to the world to their followers through FB that they have this or that from
their bucket list!
I am really questioning this phenomenon.
Is it a list comprising of something you have really wanted to do for a while,
or is it one that your wealth, status, and peer pressure all come together, to
say that it is a must do item? Often it is because someone you compare your
life with has already sampled, and not to be outdone, you add it and go for it.
The chasing after a bucket list is often
not experiences of bungee jumping, but a list of places to go to in the world.
Be they way off places like the Galapagos Islands, where the reality is just a
few hours stop after days of getting there, or dangerous places like the
recently liberated from ISIL, Palmyrah in Syria. In practice these lists can be
covered by well healed or seasoned travellers, without ANY concern for the
carbon footprint that they usually profess to minimize.
If not the bucket list, what should it
be? Simply put, the experience that will give you and the person you are closest
to, the most pleasure, and which you can recall many years later, snuggled
together by a fireplace. This is the real pleasurable one promising to bring
you years of memories, that even lying in bed waiting to fall asleep, will
bring a smile to your face, and make you sleep easily! If that pleasure is on
the bucket list, then that is fine.
Frankly it is not necessary that they
are famous places. In actual fact, famous places, St Marks Square in Venice to
take just an example, can be notoriously uncomfortable, crowded, expensive,
beyond value for money, and with petty thieves and pickpockets, leading to a
very disappointing interlude, which one regrets despite ticking it off the
bucket list.
Memorable experiences do not have to
mean, you have to go anywhere special, or too far. You can have it at home, in
the right company and the right mix of ambience and weather! Now would you have
thought of that? Simple things can give and get more pleasure than highly
complicated arrangements taking months of planning and a lot of sacrifice to
achieve. It is something worth contemplating.
We tend to be suckers for punishment, or
tied to ritual not because we like it, but because we want to show-off, rather
than be truly contended, by gazing into thin air in the right place, surrounded
by the occasion. The occasion being the right mix of view, wind, temperature,
company, and unexpected or more to the point, a serendipitous moment in time.
(unplanned and unforeseen pleasurable event)
These actually have a far higher place
in one’s mind and memory, than the mere completion of a pre-scribed,
pre-conceived, pre-occupied, item on the bucket list, which is soon forgotten,
or only remembered for the disappointment, rather than the fulfillment of a
dream.
Let us not forget that with a billion
tourists visiting sites, at horrendous cost of a carbon footprint for the
Earth’s survival, the special feeling that one gets from being the only person
around for miles, is NO LONGER POSSIBLE TODAY.
Now even on First Class Travel, the cabins
are full. Previously often you were the only passenger. Then you felt special
pampered and important, did not have a free loader, Airline Director next to
you to feel rotten that you paid $10,000 for the flight, and he did not!
My advice to those who contemplate a
bucket list is DON”T.
It is better to be spontaneous with your
nearest and dearest and do something you mutually enjoy. It is rare that the same
items are on the two people’s bucket lists, which mean one is in sufferance! For
the other! Actually resulting in only limited satisfaction.
The unplanned spur of the moment “let’s do
it” will more than likely, result in an exhilarating, satisfying and memorable moment
for many years to come.
It is memorable experiences we thrive by,
live by and die for and that is NOT as a result of ticking off a bucket list. We
may be single, we many be married, we may be in an ambivalent relationship. Nevertheless,
it is up to the individual to determine his or her secret of satisfaction in the
present, and live by that.
It is for this reason, where all others may
forsake this place, as being without the basic necessities of life, that necessities
for some, may actually be a curse for others, that being alone or in company can
still realize the goal of a satisfying stay, ensconced in nature, and with little
distraction, of other worldly pleasures other than simply those in one’s own orbit.
It is truly a blessing if one can achieve
this level of being with little of substance!
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