you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find - you get what you need.

goals are an invention of the man -- an artificial measuring stick designed to keep us compliant & productive, suppressing spontaneity through a continual disappointment feedback loop, and distracting us from the truth: life is not given us to measure; life is given us to live.

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that's my diatribe on goals, but here's the thing - goals are wack.

if you'd axt me in grade 5, i would have told you that in high school, i'd be playing clarinet in the state champion high school marching band. what i didn't know is that after 5th grade, we'd move to a new school district.

if you'd axt me in grade 7, i'd have told you in high school, i'd be playing on the varsity soccer team. what i didn't know was that after 8th grade, i'd be sent to a different school that didn't have a soccer team.

if you'd axt me in grade 9, i'd have told you i'd be on the high school debate team. what i didn't know was that speech coach was only recruiting debaters who'd be willing to... um... have extra practices, ifyouknowwhatimean.

if you'd axt me in grade 11, i'd have told you i was going to drive that toyota to boston university to learn to be a journalist. oh, so many things i didn't know about how i'd end up somewhere else doing something else with someone else.

if you'd axt me i would have told you these things were going to happen, but i don't remember making plans for these things to happen. it's simply that i could foresee that the path i was on would lead me from where i was to where those things were. there wasn't any planning or dreaming to it - it was to be what it was to be.

but the path was disrupted by falling trees and washed out bridges and little houses made of candy where the witch lived. did i care? eh. maybe here & there i cared about this or that, and okay, i cared about boston quite a bit, but people who really care -- who REALLY CARE -- figure out how to make things happen. if you care, you plan. you look at where you are and compare to where you want to be and you make a path to get there. you have strategy and tactics. you have a goal. when the path is disrupted, you focus on the goal and you stay on the path. you get THERE because you care about getting there.

me? i care about being here.