Friday 5 August 2011

Things to Do Before I'm 30


"Time. Time. What is time? Swiss manufacture it, French hoard it, Italians squander it, Americans say it is money. Hindus say it does not exist. Know what I say? I say time is a crook."
-Truman Capote US Author

Well. I’m now 29. This is it. The last year of my twenties. And what have I achieved in my short life? Not a great deal, I fear. Another birthday has passed, and another reminder pings telling me I’m running out of time.

I now have just under a year until I’m 30. I want to celebrate that birthday feeling fulfilled, like I’ve done something with my young life once it’s ended and I’m officially a thirty-something older person. So. It was time to make the proverbial list. I threw it out there on Facebook. What did people who know me suggest I scribble down?

Among the sensible responses:
Reach Everest Base Camp
Help three strangers

Well. I say “sensible”. One of those costs a lot more money than I have.

Among the less-sensible:


Beat a tramp to death with your bare hands
Participate in a bukkake
Receive colonic irrigation

Well. Who knows. Maybe... Here’s the remainder of the list. Some of these were my ideas, others were from friends. Some I think I might. Others I probably won't, but they are down here anyway. You have no way of knowing which is which!

Get into copywriting
Get into “double figures”
Have a threesome (paid)
Have a threesome (through sheer pulling power)
Perform a parachute jump
Perform a bunjee jump
Visit Loch Ness
Visit a distillery
Climb Ben Nevis
Get famous through the blog
Eliminate my fear of women
Get to grips with my memory disability. I still don’t know how best to present it to people, how best to work with it and how to stop it from preventing me from being the man I want to be. But I’m learning all the time.
Meet more people who like house music
See the northern lights from Norway
Stand atop the tallest skyscraper. At the time of writing it’s the Burj in Dubai. By the time I have the money, the tallest will be India Tower in Mumbai- but I’ll be over 30 then. Boo.

Another suggestion: Have a Mixed Martial Arts fight. I spent a few years doing MMA, and I’ll be getting back into it soon after a near-year-long break. A team-mate suggested this one. However, as a man with memory difficulties who’s trying to validate his condition and see how best to handle it, it’s probably not the best of ideas to dive into getting punched in the head. On the flip side, MMA without the striking is called grappling. This involves mostly wrestling, judo and jujitsu. Grappling competitions like Ground Control are held locally on a regular basis, so I’ll definitely give this a shot once I’ve got back into the swing of it.

So. That’s as far as I’ve got. Some of you know me well. Some of you don’t. That’s actually quite a lot as it is… but is there anything else that should go on?

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