As I begin to consider what my “bucket list” should contain, I am, as a natural consequence, forced to consider all the things that I have done in my 25 years of life. I am still a young man, relatively speaking, but I have experienced more than most my age. I have already traveled the world and made friends and enemies at home and overseas. I fought a war abroad to further our nation's foreign policy and a war at home to protect our streets.
As portrayed in the film, a “bucket list” is a return to youthful exuberance at the end of one's life. When faced with imminent death, both men allowed themselves to live as they would have had they not fallen prey to the lock-step drumbeat of our culture. How much more could they have accomplished had they simply forgone the notion of monetized value and instead immersed themselves in the aesthetic pleasures of life?
After living as a foreigner in foreign land, I returned home only to find myself a foreigner in my own land. Within the space of a year, I had languished in oppressive desert heat and enjoyed Cuban cigars at pub in Guatemala; I watched twelve feet of snow fall in Buffalo, and sat for five hours in traffic in Washington D.C. People in our society are raised from birth to ignore the pleasures of everyday life. They are indoctrinated into a materialistic ethos where status is determined by property. All things, including knowledge, are assigned a material rather than intrinsic value.
So what are the contents of my “bucket list?” In no particular order of value they are simply:
- Find intrinsic value in all things, no matter how small.
- Discover the true wealth of knowledge, not the monetized value of possessions.
- To never be trapped by the illusion that we are somehow greater than those who came before.
- Be at peace, that I am not limited by pride, intolerance, or greed.
- To paraphrase Socrates, learn to know that I know nothing.
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