My Bucket List
Today’s WordSmith Deck prompt (see this article for what this is all about) was:
“Write down 10 things for your bucket list.”
This is an interesting one for me, because I have never had a bucket list, and in fact, I have never even thought about creating one, until I saw today’s writing prompt.
So, after a lot of thought, here is my list of ten items.
Retire
I am currently 60 years old, and have been employed in some form or other since I was 17, and quite frankly, I’ve had enough.
Since moving to the USA in 2005, when I started working for myself, with my late wife, I have spent a lot of time at the computer.
For quite a while, if I wasn’t sleeping, cooking, or eating, I was working on my laptop, and although I’ve cut back quite a bit since my wife died about 16 months ago, I’m more than ready to down tools and relax a bit (well, a lot, actually).
I would, of course, still use my computer, but only for things I want to do, not things I have to do to earn a living.
I have no idea how close I am to that goal, but it’s probably my primary one at this stage.
Move To Another Country
Although I’ve been in the USA for over 14 years, I only moved here to be with the lady I loved.
If it weren’t for that, I would never have come here. (I had previously visited the USA on vacation around four times, and enjoyed those holidays, but I had never considered actually living here.)
My wife and I talked often about moving out of the country, and now that my wife has gone, there is very little keeping me here.
The main factors that are keeping me here right now are money (see above), and my dogs, because taking them elsewhere and subjecting them to international travel would not be something I’d want to do unless I had no choice.
Depending on where I went, they may have to travel by plane, in the hold, and once we arrived, they may be subjected to a lengthy quarantine period, all of which I would consider to be too stressful for them.
But the main reason I want to leave is that I really don’t like the direction in which the USA has been heading for some time, and while there are still plenty of Americans who believe it to be the best country on the planet, I wonder on what basis they say that, and how many have travelled to even one other country.
Because I’ve been to plenty of other countries, when I was younger, and I don’t see what makes the USA better than many of them.
On top of that, freedoms are being eroded, so calling it the “land of the free” seems increasingly inaccurate.
I have a list of possible destinations, which includes, in no particular order, France, Spain, Madeira (which is technically part of Portugal), Mexico, Morocco, somewhere in the Caribbean (that’s preferably not in the path of hurricanes), and maybe Uruguay.
There may be others, but those are the ones I am considering most.
You’ll notice that returning to the UK is not on my list!
Write More Books
I discovered a few years ago (but after moving to the USA) that I love writing, and I’ve written a full-length action novel, thousands of poems, quite a few flash fiction stories, and hundreds of haiku.
I have no idea whether I’m any good at it, because I do it largely for my own pleasure.
However, I rarely have time to write these days.
That’s partly because a lot of the work I still do is not creative at all, so I’m not often in the right frame of mind.
It’s also because I am trying to spend less time at the computer.
And it’s also because I am often so tired, which for me, at least, is not a good time to try writing.
So the only thing I get to do now is write one haiku a day, which I publish on a page I created called 17 Onji, on Medium.
But if I didn’t have to work, I would want to spend more time writing, because I’ve been building a list of ideas for years now.
Improve My Health
I don’t think I have any specific problems, other than anosmia which came on in 2006, but I know I should be more healthy overall.
To be fair, most of the food I eat is organic and not junk (i.e. no fried foods, no sodas), and I’ve just started doing a bit of exercise again (using a recumbent exercise bike I bought recently, and I’ve also managed to get a treadmill my wife bought years ago working once more).
But I think I’m too heavy – at almost six feet in height, my weight of 188 pounds is a bit more than I’d like. I’d stabilized at 175 pounds for years, and even that was too much for me.
And I don’t want to lose weight for any vanity reasons – I don’t really care how I look, but I don’t want to end up, by myself, being unable to move or do anything, and I’m not suggesting I’m close to that now, but it’s probably time I focused more on my health than I have in the past.
Find Somebody Or Something To Hug
Firstly, since I’m writing this during the coronavirus pandemic, this item has nothing to whatsoever to do with social distancing or anything like that.
One of the things I miss most about my wife not being here is having nobody to hug.
I’ve always been a hugger, and I was even told I was a good one, but not having somebody to put my arms around is sometimes difficult for me.
The thing is, I’m definitely not looking for another relationship, which makes it sort of difficult.
However, I know you can purchase “hugging dolls”, and I’m not talking about sex toys here.
I have become increasingly asexual for a while now, and the act of sex (in any form) has close to zero appeal to me these days.
But the sort of “doll” I have in mind is designed largely for hugging – they are life-size, and some of them even have an internal heater to simulate body warmth.
So I think that would be a nice thing to have, when I’m feeling a bit down or lonely, and, of course, when I’m in bed at night.
Learn To Meditate
I’ve long wanted to try this, and since starting this self help site, where I have a few articles on this and related subjects, I really do want to learn how to do this, mainly for the mental and physical benefits it offers.
It’s really a case of deciding how best to start – and then actually starting, because I’ve long been a procrastinator. (Having recently read Mini Habits by Stephen Guise, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I may use his approach to get going with this item.)
Privacy
There are two aspects to this – keeping myself to myself, and the wearing of few, if any, clothes.
My late wife bought this property primarily because it’s on a 20-acre plot with no close neighbours, because she too valued her privacy, probably even more than I do.
And while nobody can see into our house, there are houses that are close enough to see on to our property in general.
So wherever I continue living, I still would prefer to have my privacy.
As for clothes, I have never been a fan of wearing any more than necessary, and once wanted to try going to what used to be referred to as a nudist colony. (I have friends who visit the Cap d’Agde naturist village, in France, each year, and they love it.)
The problem was that, in spite of her open-mindedness on many subjects, my late wife had the traditional puritanical views of many Americans about the human body.
She wouldn’t let me wear a shirt in public that was so thin you could see the outlines of my nipples, and there was just one occasion, in 14 years, when she let me take my shirt off (at home).
That was shortly after I’d arrived and I was still not used to the extreme heat we get here in summer.
So, I took my t-shirt off, and then about ten minutes later, she came up with some excuse where I needed to put it back on again.
Since her death, I started wearing fewer clothes last summer – no shirt at first, and then I went totally naked for a few months during the warmer weather.
I really liked it, and it never felt odd, not even at first – I just had to be careful, given I have three dogs in the house. 🙂
However, even though I live on a 20-acre property as I mentioned above, it is technically possible to see me from other houses.
So what I’d like is to live somewhere that I can have 100% privacy, then I don’t need to worry about others seeing me.
And I don’t personally care now if they can see me naked or not because the human body is natural and nothing to be ashamed of, and I dislike the way it is sexualized – but America being America, I don’t want to run the risk of somebody being “offended” by my body and reporting me to the police.
Swimming Pool
I have wanted my own swimming pool for decades, and even though I have the space for one, I don’t really have the money – yet.
I’m not a great swimmer – I simply enjoy spending time in the pool, both swimming (in a leisurely manner only) and relaxing.
The pool wouldn’t need to be fancy, and although I once loved the idea of a swim-up bar, that would be fairly pointless these days if it’s just me.
Die Quickly And Painlessly
This may not be a traditional bucket list item, even though I’m sure this is how most people would choose to go, but it’s important to me.
I’m not afraid of dying or being dead (and that’s not because I think I will spend eternity in some type of heaven – as far as I’m concerned, once you die, that’s the end of it) – but I would rather not spend years suffering, relying on others for help, and not being able to do the things I like, such as reading.
So when it does happen, and I’m not in any great hurry to die, even though I wouldn’t really be bothered if I went to bed one night knowing I’d never wake up again (assuming any dogs I still had would be cared for, I want it to be quick and as painless as possible.
I’ve long had a hunch that I will die of a heart attack, and I have no reason to doubt that will still be the case, at some stage.
Disprove The Existence Of God(s)
This last one is going to be contentious (because I know that the majority of humans believe in some form of deity) and a bit weird (because I know it’s considered impossible to prove a negative – you could no more prove that fairies don’t exist than I could prove that there are no gods).
And yet, when I look at the harm religion has caused over the centuries, and the massive number of people who have died in the name of one or more gods, I think it’s time for it to go.
I do get that it brings comfort to millions, although I would argue it’s a false sense of comfort, because there is no proof that there is any god or any afterlife (either good or bad).
I also know that some good comes from it too, such as charity, and while I know that a common accusation is that somebody is not a “true Christian” when they do something others object to, who gets to define what a true Christian is?
Tens of thousands of versions of Christianity exist today, so there clearly isn’t consensus on what it means to be a Christian.
On the other hand, what I find particularly disturbing is how the Christian Right, in the USA, want to usurp the secular principles of the country and transform it into a theocracy, with laws based on their belief system.
The Bible in particular has been used to justify all sort of practices, including slavery and the treatment of women as second-class citizens (or even property), as well as the condemnation of those who are not heterosexual.
Taking this further, there are countries in the world (all of which I think are currently Muslim), where being an atheist may qualify you as being considered a terrorist, and where you can be flogged, jailed, and even killed.
That is like having a thought police on steroids – how can what you merely think be any type of crime?
Remember, a theist is somebody who claims that one more gods exist, while an atheist rejects that claim on the basis of insufficient evidence. In other words, an atheist is not claiming that no gods exist (because if they did, the burden of proof would be on them to prove there are no gods).
But to me, it is such a waste.
People spend time (I estimate at least 100 million hours a week, in the USA alone) worshipping a deity who has never been proven to exist, they indoctrinate their children into their beliefs, threatening them with the prospect of eternal damnation if they “sin”, and religion generally discourages the asking of questions, thus hindering scientific progress.
It has already been shown that the Christian Bible is inaccurate from many perspectives (e.g. history, science) and there are also lots of inconsistencies and even contradictions, and yet people say they live their lives by it – even though in many cases they have not actually read it.
Having never been a believer myself, even though I was nominally raised as Anglican / Church Of England, I consider myself fortunate that I was not forced to follow any religion or worship any deities, but I do honestly think that mankind would be better off concentrating its efforts on reality and not on wishful thinking.
So my thinking is that if, and it’s a gigantic if, of course, it could be proven that no gods exist, humans could finally let go of bronze age superstitions and move forwards.
And lastly, I’m not saying I think religion should be banned per se – I’d much rather people concluded, for themselves, that there are no such things as gods.
Conclusion
Well, that was a struggle, but in the end, I found my ten items.
I’m just glad the prompt didn’t want any more, because I would really have struggled. 🙂
In looking for ideas, I came across this article where somebody has put together a list of over 1,100 bucket list items, which is impressive.
I scanned down that list, looking for ideas, and while there are several items I have done, not particularly because they were things I considered worthy of being on a bucket list (i.e. they just happened to be available or things that appealed to be at the time), I have to say that the vast majority of those items have zero interest for me.
If I were younger, I might consider creating a bucket list and acting on it, but I’d probably suggest doing that only after you’ve worked out who you truly are and what really matters to you, but now that I’m 60, it all seems a bit academic for me.
Additional Resources
These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:
