Life Is Short - Be Willing To Move On

The boxelder bugs who flock into my house seeking shelter from the cold seem untroubled by skepticism. They march in and are squished, and more bugs walk across the smeared innards of boxelder brethren, and nobody is the wiser. The message is never passed on toward the rear.

Our time is brief. No matter how smart you are or pretty, the demand for you is limited. This is the hard lesson of adult life. Vancouver wants you to come and perform your work and you say yes and hundreds of e-mails fly back and forth - What beverage would Mr. Keillor wish us to place in the back seat of the limo? Fermented persimmon juice? Not a problem. Should the flower petals that young maidens strew in his path be rose or narcissus? - and then, two days before the big day, you are struck by a sore throat and propulsive sneezing. So you call Vancouver and tell them you can't come. They take the news calmly. They don't shriek, "No! No! Not this! Our lives will be shattered if you cancel, esteemed one." Your non-appearance is No Problemo.

And this is how you find out the hard truth. The world can get along without you pretty well.

You don't want to be the last person to write a novel in Esperanto or compose a 12-tone symphony, the last Socialist Labor candidate trying to hand out literature to the working class as they go into Wal-Mart, or the last Christian Science person to believe in the efficacy of prayer after all your friends have slipped away to have surgery, or the consumer of the last contaminated tuna left on the grocery shelf - you don't want that.

Time to move on. Tell the others. It's a brand-new day. Let us start making our way on out of Afghanistan, Mr. President.

Garrison Keillor's column appears regularly in The Baltimore Sun. His e-mail is [e-mail].