Goalsetting: the internal dialog of a Meyer's Brigg "P" with a rousing finish

I read somewhere some time ago, that “hazy goals produce hazy results.” At first I very much disliked this phrase. It was jarring and simplistic.

I’m someone who has rarely felt the desire to define hard and fast goals—I dislike being boxed in and am generally more comfortable riding the waves and trusting where I float, with an occasional paddle in an interesting direction as something appears on the horizon. I believed that one could keep one’s prospects vague and still have a strong sense of purpose. After all, "not all who wander are lost."

I’ve since found that if I do want to get to the farthest points of interest on the horizon, it isn't quite enough to give an occasional lackadaisical paddle. I benefit greatly from charting and carrying a map too. It is true that having clarity is essential to chart and revise the course, and indeed, the more clear and defined my goals are, the closer I find that I come to achieving proximity of where I want to find myself, and of how I want to expend my energies…cause my effects…grow my gardens.

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But still, the question of whether goals and destinations are even necessary at all begs to be asked more directly. Isn't it enough to take life one breath at a time?

No, they not necessarily necessary. But then, they do up the ante on making things more interesting. They give the journey some more intensity and momentum—more vitality because more is at stake. They provide a context within which to live and make meaning. That and when a specified goal is actually reached, it's more often than not a hoot, a shot in the arm, a cause for hats and horns, certainly, better than a poke in the eye!

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I think, despite my previous preferences, I now would rather have a destination in mind. I’d rather [gasp] limit [sigh] my options to increase the chances that opportunities which I favor most are integrated into my path before those that just randomly float my way are. And as much as I still enjoy wandering and getting lost, at what is quite possibly the midpoint of my life, I recognize that I do want to attempt to achieve a few things before I expire. I would be disappointed if I don't at least give them a go. That reason and that there are enough things (including skills, ideas, and interests) that I've picked up along the way in the first half of my life that I'd like to either keep or augment.

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How exalted is the goal/dream/destination? Is THE GOAL itself as important as the journey to the goal? In the end, is it not true that: “happiness isn’t a destination, it’s the train that gets you there.”

It's true enough, yet, if one doesn’t have a destination, it’s damn hard to know which ticket to buy at the counter.


...NOW EVERYBODY SING, this ditty in praise of having goals:
(Lyrics to “Happy Talk” from South Pacific)


Happy talk, keep talkin' happy talk,
Talk about things you'd like to do.
You got to have a dream,
If you don't have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true?

Talk about the moon floatin' in the sky
Lookin' at a lily on the lake;
Talk about a bird learnin' how to fly.
Makin' all the music he can make.

Happy talk, keep talkin' happy talk,
Talk about things you'd like to do.
You got to have a dream,
If you don't have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true?

Talk about the sparrow lookin' like a toy
Pickin' through the broaches of a tree;
Talk about the girl, talk about the boy
Countin' all the ripples on the sea.

Happy talk, keep talkin' happy talk,
Talk about things you'd like to do.
You got to have a dream,
If you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?

Talk about the boy sayin' to the girl:
"Golly, baby, I'm a lucky cause."
Talk about the girl sayin' to the boy:
"You an' me is lucky to be us!"

Happy talk, keep talkin' happy talk,
Talk about things you'd like to do.
You got to have a dream,
If you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?

If you don't talk happy,
And you never have dream,
Then you'll never have a dream come true!

[Spoken]
It's good idea, you like?

What everybody wants

From “13 Conversations about 1 thing”:

1st Character: What is it that you want?

2nd Character: What everyone wants, to experience life, to wake up enthused, to be happy.

Ghost World--a study in contempt-for-normalcy

I’m coming off from 2 weeks of being out of commission—1 lost to caring for someone w/ the flu, and another to my own bought w/ a follow-up flu. This entry will be shooting from the hip. I only wish to build some momentum and shake some of this inertia and atrophy which has set in.

Speaking of inertia and atrophy, I just finished watching “Ghost World.” The director, Terry Zwigoff (also of “R.Crumb”) has such clarity and humor. He’s not really for the mainstream, but speaks so well to those of us who are disaffected and feel we are either outside the norm or at least sympathetic to outsiders.

I especially like that Zwigoff neither apologizes for, or glorifies outsiders. He presents outsiders with a glaring simplicity that is both empathetic and brutally honest about who they are and how they muddle along. He doesn’t glorify his heroes just because they are seemingly disadvantaged in the proverbial survival of the fittest and might deserve a karmic leg-up from being an underdog. Rather, he presents them with a sympathy that allows the audience to route for them, but still holds firm that even the geekiest human oddity doesn’t lift himself up by knocking others down. His characters are compelled to find their own merit and put it forward irregardless of the awkwardness of their existence. Given his chosen subject matter, a lesser man could easily resort to being intense, or maudlin, or bitter and mean-spirited, but he’s just pretty funny and refreshing in his observations. I admire that. His viewpoint is noble and I count him as one of my heroes.

As someone who spent years harboring a contempt for normalcy, and years working at reminding myself to release this contempt, I think that his work and humor is innately infused with a rare wisdom. …Note to nameless daughter: Don’t define your life by what you don’t value in the world and others, let go of those things and seek and embrace what you do value (no matter how uncomfortable it may be to do so).


In short:
…Zwigoff dares to show the price that many of his characters pay to maintain a contempt for normalcy. He understands the contempt of those who “can’t relate to 99% of humanity,” yet with humor he doesn’t let them off the hook for the fact that they must at least try to get along with the world and its population, even those who fit the mythological norm.

Enid: “I think only stupid people have good relationships.”
Seymour: “That's the spirit.”

Notes to a Nameless Daughter

I chose the name "Pocock" as my surname after the main character in the book "Pocock and Pitt." As my namesake, Pocock tried to make sense of the world and his place in it, he wrote introspective missives to his nameless son(a disabled grown boy who had been cared for in an institution from the time of infancy — an unactualized yet not forgotten part of himself). The letters he wrote, although to a crippled extension of himself, were written with a tone of sincerity and optimism that the words would really be of use (perhaps it was enough that he knew the words were of use for him to say, even if his son would never read or make use of them). I have no daughter, therefore, I write mine to my nameless daughter...the one who might have been, the one unactualized inside of myself (the daughter who is the mother of me), perhaps the one in all women, certainly to the ear that does not necessarily have to hear my voice to make me feel heard just the same. I chose Pearl as my first name to remind me that the "world is my oyster." I can thrive here in this life and adapt and form myself into a being of beauty, intrigue, impact and form if I choose to sustain my efforts with clarity and to trust the world to be available to me in the ways I most need to be formed. I wish to invoke the image that there is a dialog between myself and the world that helps form us both in the same way that an oyster and a pearl have an impact on each other.
I am here with a voice and a meaning and an impact. I wish to use this web medium as a context to explore my voice, meaning and personal mission in the world.