I am going to direct you to this lovely post over at the Monkey See blog - "The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going to Miss Almost Everything" - not simply because I was percolating on something similar, but because it is great and true. And frankly, a relief to me. See, once you accept that you cannot do it - you cannot watch all the great TV, see every wonderful play, read every amazing book, listen to every beautiful song, attend every fabulous party, meet every awesome person and see every cool place - not without access to a time machine, well, I find it a relief. And of course, as is pointed out in the piece, there are infinite metrics available for attempting to figure out in advance which were the great TV shows and which are the awesome people and which is the transcendent art, but you know what? None of them are perfect. It's all subjective, so invariably you will spend some of your time on the books you find dull, people you find boring and places you find derivative. And that's okay too. Seriously, this seem terribly dark and depressing but instead I find it really freeing. Because once you realize you just can't, you say, okay hopefully I'll get to that book/person/art/TV/music. But am I doing something I like right now? If so, yay! If not, please proceed to the next thing in the hopes that it will be better. Have fun out there!
