The title of this post is the epitaph that Studs Terkel wanted on his tombstone. I know this because I just watched a 45-minute documentary on his life instead of working on the Writing Salon summer session scheduling. I read Studs' book Working when I was in college, and I have kept it through all the years and all the moves from apartment to apartment, house to house. Other books were purged, but not this one. What a guy he was.
At the height of his career the McCarthy Era hit, and he refused to lie or to betray friends in order to save himself. Lost his job as a result, went through a great deal of hell and suffering, but stuck to his guns, pulled himself up by his bootstraps, and started over by taking a job at a hole-in-the-wall radio station that was barely hanging on. Worked his way all the way up to...and then beyond...where he had been. In fact, ended up with a Pulitzer Prize. Lived to be 96, still sharp as a tack, after having survived heart surgery at the age of 93.
"Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying."
Astonishment rather than torpor. I like that.
However, when astonishment is nowhere to be found, eating plenty of cheesecake and chocolate also helps to crush torpor. You can also take movie breaks. I did that today when, while trying to force myself to work on the Writing Salon summer scheduling, I realized I was "sort of dying." So I found a robust adventure movie on On Demand called 2012 and starring John Cusak as the heroic dad who helps save his ex-wife and two children from dying in an end-of-the-world catastrophe (earthquakes an tsunamis gobbling up every human on earth except for 400,000 or so lucky ones who manage to make it to China, where . . . well, I wouldn't want to ruin such a fine highbrow film for you. It's nice and long, too. 158 minutes).
When it was over, I REALLY didn't want to work on the scheduling, so I did stuff for my Round Robin class instead.
Today's photo is appropo of nothing. It's a close-up of a fence that I liked. The little holes make it, don't you think?