I Would Rather Be Ashes than Dust

Jack London (1876-1916)

While he is probably best known for The Call of the Wild and White Fang, Jack London had some other memorable quotes. One of my favorites is, "Life’s not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well." His all time best though, I was reminded of today;

I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.

The thing I remember about the last time I used this quote was I used it to support an argument with my ex about why I did't bother taking pictures at get-togethers, birthdays, vacations, etc. I would take 1 or 2, or sometimes forget altogether. She was the opposite and I wish I had seen it earlier and recognized it for what it was: vanity combined with perfectionism

Pictures consumed her. even before Facebook. A birthday party meant having the birthday person pose for a picture with every individual gift, one with the cake, the cake by itself, the cake with unlit candles, the cake with lit candles, the person blowing them out, the people cheering the blowing out, the video on a separate camcorder capturing the whole thing...you get the idea. And if they involved her, even more so, as she had to look perfect in every shot; 5-10 pictures worth, just to keep 1.

It was a chore to have any kind of activity. Hockey games, take picture after picture from the stands. Christmas? Spent every one in an argument as we had to do a family picture that had to be P-E-R-F-E=C-T. Oops. see that = sign there insead of the -? I would have to fix that. Did you notice I forgot the t in instead 2 sentences ago? She would have, and insisted to do it again until its perfect. Perfectionism: It sucks the fun out of everything. So the Christmas family picture would involve the four of us sitting in front of the tree, with the boys in front. I would set the camera on self timer burst mode so it would take 5 pictures at a time. We would then take about 200 pictures that would take about 90 minutes until she was happy with one. The boys patience was worn through after about 5 tries while she would complain about the picture being off center (never mind that i explained i could crop it), or that someone wasn't looking, or their smile was crooked, or looked fake or innumerable other reasons as to why we had to do it again. The session would end with the boys crying and her screaming at everyone every year.

So, the argument was over why I didn't take pictures, and I quoted her the line, "I would rather be ashes than dust", hoping to convey to her that I would rather live the moment than record the moment. She didn't get it. So I asked her when the last time she had pulled out the photo album and gone through it, or pulled up her picture file on her camera roll. She still looked at me with that same dull, blank look, not comprehending my meaning. I explained it to her, that life is to be lived, not spent trying to capture it on film. I want the freedom to sit and enjoy the concert I'm attending and not try to capture it for other people to comment on. When there's a party, I want to spend it talking with my friends and having fun, not doing selfies to convince myself how much fun I'm having. Her not understanding this was a huge factor in my recognizing the gulf between us; that we could be so fundamentally different in the priorities we set for ourselves.

And so, I shall use my time.