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THE EPILOGUE: AHA!
Oh, the sweetness of an Aha moment! There you are, totally, flummoxed, sputtering and stuck and then the light bulb goes off! "Of course, I have to press the power button for the computer to work!" Yes, you could smack yourself in the head and exclaim "I'm an idiot!", but you want the computer to work and now it does! What better outcome is there than exactly what you were after? I mean you can beat yourself up if you really want, I do it, a lot of people do it, it can be fun, but those are really just wasted calories. Of course, others can ruin your Aha moment as well, "everyone knows that genius!" they taunt. "Well, I didn't, but now I do!" It does feel like Negative Ned's just come parachuting down from anywhere just to ruin your day. You are just walking down the street smiling to yourself and they jump out of the bushes "whatever it is, it's not that great!" then disappear back into the bushes. You can't let folks rob you of your victory of cloud clearing illumination! Big or small, you were confused, lost, or stuck but now you are not, now you have clarity and purpose! Before you were putting too much vermouth in your Manhattan or not enough, and now you've adjusted it, and it tastes like the one from the fancy bar! You never learned how to program a VCR but you hooked up your laptop to your wall mounted TV! Which is way better! Would it make any sense to still me mad that you never learned how to record one channel while you watched another? Would you stop a stranger on the street and brag that you DID know how to do that? "We have never met but in 1986 I taped Caddyshack while I watched the Bears game! So in your face!"
You wanted to climb a tall mountain, and you set about training yourself for it. You bought the equipment, walked up hills, found smaller mountains, carried around a heavy backpack and then you went to the big mountain and climbed it! You were certain that once you got to the top of that thing you would unlock some part of your life and so many things would become clearer. Instead, you got a beautiful view. All of the obstacles of your life didn't vanish, and your mind became a temple of calm, you just set your mind to something, and you did it! Be proud, be happy about that accomplishment which no one can take away from you, it just didn't give you eternal bliss because nothing does that. The euphoria you felt at the top is both real and earned it just doesn't fill out the TPS reports that are waiting for you at work or fix your broken dishwasher. The Aha moment was right there all along, you can overcome any number of obstacles, but you will find that there is more waiting. The trick is to enjoy it the best you can and navigate them as well as you can. Whatever the current this is, it is. The TPS reports are not more challenging than climbing a mountain, and you just did that.
You can get a promotion, a raise, a spouse, a child, another child, a house, a fancy car, the most allocated bourbon in the world and the each have their own perks but none of them are the magical answer to all questions. The Aha moment is that the answer lies within. That you can "fail" today, learn why, and try again tomorrow. Would you really want to just sail effortlessly through life like an indestructible balloon? On Sunday, I get up very early for my morning walk. I listen to music, or the WTF podcast, or a smart person talking to another smart person and I feel great about starting my day with art and exercise. Then I drive to Vicente bakery and buy several sweet and savory pastries AND a breakfast sandwich! I feel a tremendous amount of joy on the way, picking them out, driving back home, and EATING them! And then I have one on Monday and the last one Tuesday because they hold up pretty well. I'm not walking at 6 am on my day off so I can pose for the 2025 Dad Bod liquor buyer calendar, I'm walking to counterbalance the sweet and savory treats that are coming my way! That Aha moment happened sometime earlier this year when I realized that a total devotion to calorie counting was the equivalent to pre planning a miserable life. Let's see I have you penciled in for hungry daily, a bunch of joyless food choices, lots of saying no to fun things that people try to hand you, and a lot of "conversations" related to which items have less calories than others with your fellow masochists. Getting to wear smaller pants and shirts is just no match for Pistachio Monkey Bread and a Bourbon and Ginger while the Bears pummel a hapless Jaguars team in London! Aha! Instead, I can move my body more, not eat until I am stuffed, and make smarter food choices more often. One of the most common refrains that I hear is a planned amount of short-term suffering to achieve a temporary goal. If I starve myself for three months I can take a photo for the internet. Then what happens? If every Wednesday you are saying "just two more days, just two more days until Friday!" that is not a great place to live. I understand how lucky I am that I took a temporary job and my Aha moment was I can't wait to get back to work and twenty years later here I am still happy.
The Aha moment is not rare, but it often goes unrecognized or unacknowledged. As though some judge is going to come in and rule against you! Que the sound of a whistle being blown "that wasn't an Aha moment you are just temporarily stopped being an idiot!" That judge is wrong because there is simply no denying that once you realized adding shredded bacon to your Spaghetti is the unlocking of some true flavor bliss and there is no going back!! Once you have poured a glass of Early Times Bottled in Bond and you know that thirty dollars just defeated sixty dollars that an Aha has arrived and it is delicious! Once you realize that at the end of the day the people that you love and that love you count more than random strangers pooping on you is an Aha moment. You are standing outside of the bathroom holding a purse for your partner and the person mocking you is just a fool who is confused, jealous, or both. Sometimes just shutting your mouth when you witness a blunder is a fantastic gift. The Aha moments can be found almost anywhere and are an important and magical part of life. It is the kind of curiosity that is driven by wonder and not by disdain or hate. One of the best parts of my dropping sarcasm is that moment where the people in my life started to realize that if I was saying it, it was only because I meant it. It was an Aha moment that i suspected but once realized it was true and it is fantastic.
We are NOT to old to learn, change or grow. Interestingly enough part of that process is accepting who we actually are. That is a critical Aha moment. You can realize you prefer fruity reds and have grown tired of pretending you like super oaky and tannic wines. You might realize like myself that the reason you love so many Woodford Private Selects is that is it fun to drink ninety proof whiskey instead of cask strength. You can go to bed every single night and absolutely roast yourself for all of the things you did NOT do. I didn't wash the dishes, I didn't finish my book, I didn't work out, I didn't eat kale, I didn't finish my science project from the Seventh grade, I never answered those last twenty emails, OR you can just realize you did your best today and you can try your best tomorrow. If you had a time machine, would you use it to make sure you did the laundry yesterday??? If you found a genie in the lamp, would you ask it to make you better at answering emails? So, you went back in time invested in Google in 1995 and now you are millionaire. What is that you're not doing today that you would do then instead? Would I fly to Paris and get my croissants there instead of here?
I have a series of very strong memories in my brain and the vast majority of them are either Aha moments or Aha related. The reason they don't text you back is because you are a lower priority for them. They don't hate you, they don't want you to die, they just have you lower on their list, you have people lower on your list too and there is nothing wrong with any of that. Your parents are human beings, they might not have been raised by the greatest people on earth, and they had every intention of doing a better job than their folks and maybe they did or maybe they didn't. You had every intention of being the best friend, spouse, child, worker, citizen, partner etc. but you were you. Great at some things, mediocre at some things, and flat out bad at others. The number one grader was you. You would not have graded your friends or loved ones as harshly as you judged yourself but here, we are. We rightfully accept other people's limitations more readily than our own.
Don't dismiss your next epiphany! It is not just an awesome bar in Louisville, it is a wonderful feeling that should be both enjoyed and cultivated! Einstein was probably more thrilled that he remembered to stop for coffee and a strawberry strudel than when he came up with the Theory of Relativity. Sure, he changed physics forever, but without his morning coffee and tasty treat he felt grumpy all day and wanted to argue with everyone for no good reason. So, when you finger out that you can just enjoy the things you enjoy and be the person that you actually are then you can celebrate the biggest Aha moment of them all. Figuring out cold fusion might help or even save the world but learning that you love Sushi more than any other food is incredibly fun and satisfying and pays dividends every time you have it. Realizing that the reason a conflict in your life still persists because you are fueling it, is a great Aha moment. Allowing yourself to enjoy anything at all without apologizing is an Aha moment. Not enjoying with an asterisk, explanation, or under the cover of darkness, but just being there and actively having a good moment in your life! Nouns are confounding and limiting. Label this, label that, use clumsy words to try and describe the thing. Verbs! Verbs are where it is at! People write entire novels but what they are most frequently trying to say is Wahoooooooo!
Cheers
Keith
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