When I’m Wiser and I’m Older.
Looking back, I made the first entry into this journal on June 14, 2007, when I was not quite 21 years old (clocking in at 32 now, with a receding hairline. Oh, how it does sting a bit).
This was 10 years before NGC would switch to the new (current) journal format and we’d gain the ability to give a unique name to our journals. I’ve given some thought over time to what I think I’d like to call this (other than just “Revenant” or “Revenant’s Journal”) and I think I’ve settled on an answer:
“When I’m Wiser and I’m Older.”
It’s a reference to a song by Avicii that I’ve loved ever since the first time that I heard it, called “Wake me up.” The first versus and the chorus of the song are as follows:
Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can't tell where the journey will end
But I know where to start
They tell me I'm too young to understand
They say I'm caught up in a dream
Well life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes
Well that's fine by me
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself, and I
Didn't know I was lost
I had this idea when thinking about a comment I made about the hobby and life being a journey and the self-discovery aspect of that on thisistheshow’s journal entry a few months ago.
The part of the song I’ve always loved are the last two lines of the chorus, “all this time I was finding myself and I didn’t know I was lost.” I feel like that fits well with my experience and the changes I’ve undergone in the last 12 years – spanned and covered somewhat unevenly by this journal.
It's hard to think of a core aspect of myself that hasn’t changed much since this journal was started. I’ve gone from being a single, 20-year-old, undergrad college student to being a married father of two, with a PhD, 7 published peer-reviewed papers. The things that were the all-consuming focus of my collecting life 10 years ago are almost an afterthought at the moment as I pursue radically different endeavors.
It’ll be interesting to see what I’m doing in another 10 years and if I’m still writing entries here.
Naming the PMG journal “Gradually, then suddenly,” to match my signature set was pretty easy comparatively. That collection of entries / writings basically exists as a testament to my obsession with those notes and hyperinflation notes in general – and, one of these days, when I’ve completed or mostly completed the Zimbabwe set, I am going to expand to include Yugoslavian, Venezuelan, Hungarian, Argentinian and other hyperinflation notes. At least, that’ll be the plan / hope.
Who knows? Maybe one of these days all of this will offer my sons some insight into how my head works.
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