Monday, December 10

How to get yourself depressed. Not.

Here's something guaranteed to deliver a low blow to the your already down self-esteem: what other people accomplished when they were your age. Here's mine:

The Danish physicist Niels Bohr published his revolutionary theory of the atom.

French novelist George Sand published her first novel, Indiana.

Dr. Ludwig Zamenhof of Warsaw invented the artificial language Esperanto.

British physician Thomas Wakley began publishing The Lancet.

Jamaican reggae composer/performer Bob Marley recorded "I Shot the Sheriff."

Nuclear plant lab tech Karen Silkwood died in a car crash on her way to meet with a New York Times reporter and a union official to document her allegations about falsified quality control reports.

French naturalist Jean B. Lamarck coined the word biology to encompass the studies of botany and zoology.

Radio DJ Brent McCoy killed a mouse, seemingly by staring at it, in his living room.

College graduate and licensed therapist Katie moved back in with her parents to muck stalls on their farm and fold her dad's underwear, still warm from the dryer.


Now except for the last two, all the others are something I can't do and don't really care much about doing. I remember reading a similar list a few years ago, and became really sad that Orson Welles made Citizen Kane when he was 24 or something. Somebody else said that if you haven't done anything spectacular or world-changing by age 30, perhaps you never will. That gives me a few more years. Not that I'm counting on it. I'll probably look at this post by then and consider myself bonkers.

via

No comments: