5 Events that Deserve Your Aspiration: Who Says that All You Have to Look Forward to is Death and Taxes?


5 events that deserve your aspiration title

There are some things you must do to live, like eat, breathe, and pay taxes.  Then there are things you should do to live which are non-vital to your health, but essential for making the eating, breathing, and tax-paying all worth while.

By Kenyon Boltz

As the circle of life rotates in some mutated orbit, sometimes staying on path, sometimes diverting completely away and leading into another orbit, there are events that are worthy of attention. Not saying a bucket list, but I will emphasize an event roster: a de facto contingency where if you have the chance, you should take it. Simply stated.

However, as most paths we endure, fleetingly, or utterly miss, some are financially outside our well-intended means. These have been deleted from this serendipitous list: this is not a top five; they are selected for high recommendation. I encourage feedback or replying for what I may have missed. Yes, these are subjective but not entirely misguided.

Due to the wild extremes our idle hands can direct us, I did not consider the ridunkulous since that category is almost infinite… and basically wanton.

So with out further ado…

Performing in Front of a Live Audience

There has always been an intriguing if not beguiling effect of watching people perform drama, comedy, or music. Our fascination with the entertainment machine cannot be argued. Billions of dollars are spent for conflict, tension, and humor; it has been and will be. Thus, the opportunity to actually perform in front of people is plausible and achievable. Ask a performer what makes them continue and you probably will get the Captain Obvious right hand: the thrill of playing the role. We already play enough roles; how about utilizing the role as an overcoat for your own inhibitions, fears, or debauchery. It doesn't have to be on the Silver Screen or Broadway; it can be as mundane as spoken poetry [which is nothing to scoff at].

Article text - everyone has the innate talent of criticizingPhoto by DB Walker

Everyone has the innate talent of criticizing as all arm chair pros do but to cross the threshold, to reveal yourself in suspension for the audience is cathartic. Who's to say that you, or him, or even her, can't do such an act? It's the attitude but not the obstacle. Having the chance to do an open mic at a comedy improv is small chips but its after-effects are amazing: the cascade of numbness, the rush of connecting with the crowd. I have done this minefield and implore people to balls up. Yes, it can be what you have always feared, but at this level, you can rant about what you want and what you are going through on a level that no one can diminish.

Besides, if it doesn't work out, you got the box theater down the street next week.

Jumping Out of a Plane

The title alone tells you the emphatic impact this carries. Fears are all around us: fear of water, spiders, even feet; but the fear of heights should be overcome. It's all in your head. Have someone tie you up, slap a helmet on you, duct tape mittens on your hands, give you a mouth guard, and toss. You can thank them later. Not all things you personally think is right; sometimes it takes others to lead and you follow.

A chance to actually jump out of a plane and free-fall [which is the key] for 45 seconds is an experience few can describe and never sell in a store. A static-line drop is not the same. You have to have to the sliding door of the plane, perching your toes on the edge, the countdown of “3-2-1- Jump!” as you hear it in the only time of slow motion: best part… the seconds ahead making the experience exponentially greater.


With the numerous sky farms to choose from, you can rest comfortably that they know what they are doing. It's not like you have to worry like the first people to test parachutes… which I find truly intriguing. Because, as a kid, a large garbage bag was foul-proof: climb up to the roof, find a good spot [if you were smart, you had a soft spot to land], and jump. With the same results as most kids find out, the originators had to go back to the drawing board.

Overall, the experience cannot be bottled and sold; therefore, only you can purchase this unbelievable rush and count from three and jump.

Reading James Joyce's Ulysses

To say reading is a plus to life is to say water is necessary. This book is different. But to be James, writing in 1925, it could be difficult. Especially when his work went censored and would not be published by the powers of the government arm is needless and shameless.

An article written by Joelle Zois, from the NY Times, in 1988, states that the cacophony of judges and juries over a 14 year period (1920-1934) realized the state of the looking-glass theory of obscenity: you are only what you see… if you perceive different in the words…; it passed that the reader is cognitive enough to understand “pornography,” which it was called based on Molly Bloom's activities, mild in our day and age.

The book is a compact mass of ideology, existence, symbolism, motifs, and religious arguments, all hidden within a loose template of the “Odyssey” by Homer. It is approximately a twenty-four hour period for eighteen people in a town outside of Dublin, Ireland.

I can understand how a book could be an experience that deserves aspiration. It is the challenge and the reward of reading such a lost art of painting with words and multiple formats and styles that came from one man: a true masterpiece.

I have attempted but failed… a quarter in; I went to the bookstore to get help but was drowned in tomes, volumes of critiques of what Joyce was saying….

Ulysses bookPhoto by Krystian Majewski

I took a moment to see what I read and sold myself to keep reading… by the way there is a blogspot, supposedly, about a man's journey reading it for the first time.


Yes this may be a biased addition but I wouldn't include it unless it was worthy of a consideration, be it five seconds or even a first read. The reading is convoluted but the journey to understand a man's double innuendos, subtle historical mythology and to walk through his mind wanting more… it is all possible at your local bookstore.

Falling in Love

I am not a fan of disclaimers but this subject leads me away… but pulls me back in. The Animal of Love turns, attacks, I counter with a Shield of ‘Peter Pan.' A stalemate… for now.

Discovering a true love can be a truly, infinite mountain of explanations: what I clarify is to actually reach that point where you find a person, whomever, that meets your expectations of your wants, needs, desires, expectations, intuitions… and argues with you.

Infatuation is a weekly event; love is a series. And to say there are no causalities, I would be naïve. That is what Shakespeare wrote: “It is better to have love and lost than to have never loved at all“. Easier said than done like identifying with yourself or what you need….

This compartment of my article is short because of the rebuttals, the revolutions from other parties; it can lead to reformation on many “angles,” but once discovered and cultivated, there is no question about its effect.

Reformation illustration

Participating in Political Reform

The word ‘politics' is almost, maybe right next to, the abyss of discussion with religion. However, political reform is simpler than you think. Many can remember moments… moments of true political events, especially the Baby Boomers. But we, in the Gen-X and Gen-Y, can also relate.

The 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall is coming up in November: this moment is a linchpin to political reformation: maybe some were lucky to get a piece; maybe not.

This moment can transcend upon what our population of the two-party system can be. Yes it is global but if you read into the history of what the brick barrier stood for, then political reform would not be so dramatic. Especially when you have tens of cable or satellite channels expounding upon what George W. Bush or Obama did this or that.

But let's go back to the true heroes in recent time: Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.

These are individuals that succumbed to momentous influence, both sides mind you, saying do against what they sought. Then we have Camelot, John Kennedy, a movie star in himself, which was taken so tragically on November 23, 1963 in Dallas, TX.

I bring these moments up for a point that political reform does not require such extents. Individually we are harmless, but in groups we are powerful. The Peace Movement against the Vietnam War is still being studied today, in order to understand how to work the public opinion with the existence of the Iraq-Afghanistan War and future foreign policy.

And in all the hoopla that you read or hear or see is to remember that you can do political reform, you can make a stance, a change, a voice; it depends on nothing but your attitude or motivation. So take the first step, vote; then go from there.
