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["clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>]

> That has always been my general plan. Now, I find I want to be selfish,
> follow my bliss, be true to myself. That means designing and building, 
> making furniture, creating landscape beauty as I envision it. Nothing is 
> so certain as change,

But aren't we talking about meeting our minimum needs in this, not about the 
sum total of our lives?  So the 'Rainy Quarter Century' plan need not 
exclude the possibility of a great number of other things.  When I hear 
people talk about their retirement and pre-retirement plans (and I hear a 
lot of that now of days), many of them have the thing planned out too 
mechanically:  we will have $XX a month to spend on movies and we will 
schedule ourselves to have a good time between 2:15 and 4:30 in the 
afternoon on Wednesdays and Fridays ...etc."

My thinking along these lines is to have a Plan A which covers the creature 
comforts, how we are going to secure those funds or commodities, and how we 
are going to disburse them.  But operating simultaneously is Plan B (and C 
and D) in which my enterprises, even into sturdy geezerhood, yield a great 
more than that.  Plan B's are not fun and it's hard to attend to them unless 
we have a pretty good Plan A in place and functioning.

I understand the furniture thing.  My bliss is musical instruments.  I've 
got tools, and plans, and wood, and a space in which to play with it all. 
It is likely to yield me some money, it has in the past.  But I'm following 
it as a bliss first, money  can follow if it's of a mind to.  But I'd like 
to be able to reach back in the barrel and pull out that extra pair of jeans 
if I need them, or tap into the fund for the purpose and pay the electricity 
for  month or two, and most important - dust off another bottle of home 
brewed beer while I think about the design of that lute I'm making.

What I mean is, just because you're making plans that greatly increase your 
odds of having that potato and pot of beans on the table, it doesn't mean 
that you won't have a peach pie as well if the tree bears this year, does 
it?

---------------------------

There are two goddesses that live close to men and compete for his 
attention: Saraswati and Lakshmi.  Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and if 
she is pursued, she is likely as not to run away.  Saraswati is the goddess 
of all things that flow, language, poetry, beauty, etc.  When men pursue 
Saraswati purely and with abandon  Lakshmi becomes jealous and vies for 
their attention by plying them with wealth.



James