Saturday, March 17, 2007

What will your obituary say?

Actually, I think this is more an epitaph, isn't it?





QuizGalaxy!
'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com


I shall miss the prince as well.


This remind me of my high school English class--we were told to write our epitaphs. This was roughly mine. I still have it somewhat memorized:


She had traveled around the country, but had never traveled the world
That was how it was throughout her life.
Always the average of the above-average,
Never first, never striving to be.
And then she died, too early,
And she wasn't even first at that.

Depressing, isn't it? I have, of course, now traveled much of the world. But I have to say that some of the way I thought of myself back then still holds true now. I'm fairly competitive, but I don't always play to win--I generally play to not lose. I remember playing Hearts in college with friends--we played ALL THE TIME for a certain period--you know how that is. And yet, I think I only shot the moon one time. I was more concerned about never getting the Queen of Spades (and I apologize for those of you who don't know how to play Hearts), and trying to prevent others from shooting the moon. To be sure, this strategy sometimes resulted in me winning, but more often than not, it landed me safely in the middle of the pack, where I enjoyed being.

I did, and do, want to be special--afterall, I said I wanted to be the average of the above-average, not just average. But there's something about being the best that is scary to me, and I generally don't strive for that. Of course, I've grown, become more confident, and heck, would I like to be the best editor who ever lived? Sure. I want my books to be considered people's favorite books of all times. I do strive for first, sometimes, now.



Thanks for Fuse#8 for the link.

5 comments:

fusenumber8 said...

I dunno. I'm kinda of partial to the last line you wrote. It has a kind of morbid humor.

perfectlyGoodInk said...

I think a lot of people play Hearts like that, myself included, if only because shooting the moon is 1) difficult unless you know what you're doing (and I don't) 2) quite embarrassing when you fail in the attempt.

Jeff Newman said...

Hi Alvina,

Yes, I have a blog! Thanks for stopping by and leaving your comments.

By the way, after I die laughing hysterically, I'll apparently be missed by a local transsexual prostitute. So that's nice.

Stephanie Roth Sisson said...

Remember that GREAT tv series, "Six Feet Under"? Each episode begins with a death...when that show was on, I couldn't get enough of it. I think it was comforting in a way, to look at something that most of us are really frightened of but never really deal with. We've all had those moments on airplanes when the "fasten seatbelt" like flashes on and the plane dips and jogs in a very usettling way...and then there we all are thinking, "this could be it." And then you think of everything you haven't said that you haven't experienced or communicated...I think about what a mess my appartment is and what my family will find out about me as they go through my stuff. I wish that I could remind myself more about all of those things undone and unsaid...but then life takes over again..anyhow, I found out just now that I'm going to die "screaming in a car"- crap.

Anonymous said...

"quietly in a modern art musem, bling died a hilarious death.
bling will be missed by paris hilton."

I wonder what exactly a hilarious death means? Almost look forward to it!