Table-Talk: Invitation # 14

What are your remaining.....

In the last question some of us, talked on this virtual table about things that “keeps us awake at night”. While some like James Casey have a clear strategy for sleeping well and leaving their worries for the day, others are still trying to figure out what works best. In the meantime, some of us, night owls, entertain ourselves, distract ourselves, or simply keep busy... and some of us just love the night.

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"Remaining ambitions" is an amusing phrase. It sounds as if ambition is some sort of limited resource. How do you measure ambition? And can ambition be a merit on its own? I remember my father saying: "With a “naked” ambition alone, you'll get nowhere" implying that ambition is only one ingredient in moving forward in life. Ambition needs direction, needs discipline, opportunity, and at least a tiny bit of talent..

Credit: The School of Life

I might misunderstand it, but it seems that the question implies ambitions are something for the first half of one’s life, after which only a few small pockets of “remaining ambitions” are left here and there to discover. As if ambition were a kind of magic potion: you take a sip here, another sip there, and eventually it’s gone. But what if the magic potion works differently? What if the more you drink, the more it refills itself? Just ask Novak Djokovic ;-)

I think this question has a different meaning for someone in their twenties, their fifties, or their eighties, because ambitions don’t simply disappear. With time, they transform. My father, who is now in his very late eighties, has the ambition of living to 100, and he has already chosen the restaurant where he wants to celebrate. He stays active, looks after his health, and is, in his own way, working towards that goal. My mother, on the other hand, celebrates every birthday as if it were her hundredth. Her ambition is to enjoy life as much as she can because, as she says, “There is nothing more beautiful than life, even when life is difficult”. As you can see in my family there has always been, both, long-term planning and short time pleasure.

The word ambition comes from the Latin ambitio, meaning “going around.” In ancient Rome, it referred to politicians walking around seeking people’s support…they still do, with promises they can not keep ;-). Over time, it came to mean striving for success. Today, we often associate ambition with careers, which lead to status, which leads to wealth, which leads to power. But I think that definition is too narrow for something as complex as ambition. Perhaps when we are younger, we associate ambition mainly with our careers, but later in life it takes on a much broader meaning.

As for the 57-year-old me, I have already written about my professional aspirations in Question 3, you can check that out. Here, I would rather look at different sort of ambitions. If I think back of my ambitions when I was younger, many I have fulfilled, others I have just dropped on the way…as the life goes, circumstances change, we change, and our ambitions adapt. Not helpful to ponder about…very rightly said:

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)

And as uninspiring as it my sound, I think to focus on one rather practical ambition: staying healthy enough to enjoy the things I like, and be there for my family. I have no ambition to remain young forever, I haven’t set an exit day as my father, but I would like to age as a fine wine, be present, learn new things, stay curious, active and independent for as long as possible. Good health is not an ambition for its own sake; it is what makes all other ambitions possible.

I would love to one day see the Nazca Lines¹, walk Rouen-Mont-Saint-Michel path², chase Aurora Borealis, start Stargazing, learn to make stained glass..and collect all 123 books of Galaktika Library (Библиотека Галактика)³ series. At the moment, those ambitions are less about planning and more about dreaming, but then we don’t know when dreams turn into ambitions, ambitions into plans and plans into actions.

Nazca Lines, Monat Saint Michele and Aurora Borealis

But perhaps not all dreams need to turn into ambitions, plans and actions. Some dreams will remain just that dreams. I remember of the crystal merchant in The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho, 1988). He dreams of making the pilgrimage to Mecca but never goes because, as he says, "it's the thought of Mecca that keeps me alive." I didn't understand him when I first read the book. Now I do, at least a little. Although I'd still rather see Aurora Borealis than just look picture of it….I bet it is going to be very cold though.

But realistically…If I can celebrate my father's hundredth birthday with him, watch my daughter fulfil her own ambitions, still be able to hike to the Seven Rila Lakes, ski downhill after a Bombardino, spend time on our good old boat, read many, many more great books and remain healthy enough to enjoy it all, I'll consider myself ambitious enough.

7 lakes, Rila mountain in Bulgaria, Bombardino on the slopes of Ponte di Legnio, Italy, our good ald boat in action near Stockholm, Sweden.

So, no in short, I don’t think I have a handful of “remaining ambitions.” I think I have ambitions that have simply matured with me. When I was young, I thought (didn’t we all?) that I was going to do something big that would change the world. Later, I thought that if I couldn’t change the world, I could at least do something to make a positive difference. Now I realise that, as a species, we don’t learn, we repeat the same mistakes, we fight the same wars, we are as greedy as ever, we don’t like to compromise our comfort..so my ambition is simply to make small but sustainable changes that are good for both me and the world.

I suppose that’s what growing older does to your ambitions. They become more realistic, less about achieving and more about experiencing, less about proving something and more about making the most of the years ahead.

And if you are interested of another and completely different perspective of ambition, I suggest you to read this curious essay on ambition, loneliness and what is real: Oversuccessful or Overlonely - The Paradox of the Ambitious Person, by Ana-Marina Bogdanova I found it refreshing and a pleasure to read.

How does your magic potion of ambition work?

How do you relate to that question?

Galaktika Library

1. https://www.britannica.com/place/Nazca-Lines

2. https://lescheminsdumontsaintmichel.com/en/les-chemins/chemin-de-rouen/

3. https://allbylucy.wordpress.com/2015/02/05/biblioteka-galaktika-that-time-bulgaria-first-met-western-sci-fi/