Mother Nature Meets Father Time

How Many Roads?

I have been watching more movies than usual lately, but they have been exercising my brain in a new manner. For instance, I have seen The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy a few times, but watching it the other day had a profound effect on my thought processes.

When I watched it before, I was thinking about how difficult or easy it can be to recover from just about any loss, as Arthur did, throughout the entire movie, if you have a certain support system in place. This time, however, I kept thinking about the mice and the super computer. Do you remember when Arthur is asked what the question for the answer of 42 was?

The mice had been searching for the purpose of life. The computer said the answer was 42, but did not give the question. Then Arthur quotes a famous song, "How many roads must a man walk down..." , and he says maybe it is 42. He said he never bothered to count, because it didn't matter.

How many roads must a man (or woman) walk down to achieve his or her purpose in life? In my previous post, we analyzed the possiblity of calling our shifts in perspectives completely different "lives". We could also say we are simply walkin down a different road now, unless maybe we have left the road altogether, or we are no longer "ourselves". Then this topic really becomes controversial.

Let us look at this example:

When my son was 2, he was a terror. In his mind, he was just having fun, and nobody really got hurt. He crashed the car, busted his screen to his window, destroyed his baby sister's birth pictures, and several other similar events. His mom and his dad were readily available to spank his butt, and tell him not to do that again.

When his father and I separated, his perspective changed. He quit trying my patience, and started hovering very closely to his sister, and by then, his new baby brother. He became an authority figure in the house, and was concerned about safety and such. His entire perspective changed. This, in effect, meant he basically walked away from that "old life".

As he grew older, and advanced through school, he became a bookworm, especially once we figured out he was cross-eyed and needed glasses. The continuous search for information, pushed his academic test scores through the roof. He started reading to his brother and sister, and was teaching them the things he would learn from reading. In this respect, he is still following the same belief system of caring for his younger siblings, but has turned down a new street, as he cares for their intellectual development, more so than physical safety. Of course, his sister is almost ten, and his baby brother is now 8, so physical safety is not as much of a threat as it was in the past.

His has also led his brother and sister into the world of athletics and physical fitness. This has been a wonderful tool to keep them away from video games and television as dominant forms of entertainment. I am sure my oldest son had none of this in mind when he started down this road, but it was a nice side effect.

What roads have you walked down in this "life"? Have you looked at a "map" lately to see where you might travel tomorrow? I have, and the prospects look great!