(This is, without a doubt, a completely complete example of this blog’s very namesake. And the worst kind, too.)

The Plan is as follows: In a little over two years from now, I will have attianed my Master’s Degree. 

The Plan will be executed by: A strong investment of my brain and heart into becoming a Lady Scholar of the highest degree and henceforth being able to ‘sow my brain seeds’ into the malleable minds of young college students and colleagues.

In consulting what my Plan is, the reality of the failure of even those best laid is apparent and everywhere.  If I may direct you to Antoni Gaudí, for a moment, the original architect of the unfinished masterpiece Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia, located in Barcelona, Spain.

Antoni’s opus. A massive structure that is far more impressive than you’re giving it credit for. While it is difficult to imagine the course of his life went according to plan, after the beginning of the construction of the cathedral leading up to his death in 1926, his blueprints were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War by anarchists. Hope, be lost?  Plans, be damned! Construction on the cathedral continues to this day and as it approaches its 140th birthday in 2026, it shall be finished (I am sure the residents of Barcelona have heard this one before).

But it’s beautiful, no? Aside from the fact that I highly doubt the Spanish Government really wants a gargantuan, unfinished, “witch castle” in their midst, there’s a certain romanticism about a postmortem continuation of plans, even if they stray from their original intention (Hendricks, 2009). It would be easy to allow something such as death and the burning of blueprints to get in the way of completion, but we press on, still, and follow through, ever aware of the likelihood that even this present architect may not live to see the day when steel cranes and wooden scaffolds no longer scrape the sky along side massive spires and ornate decoration.

So, what does that mean to me? Basically that I realize the importance of plans and their value, but also the value in their potentially ephemeral nature. I am noted by some (myself), as being a lover of plans, lists, ideas, future-minded thinking. While obtaining a Master’s involves slightly more planning than say, a weekly investment in my mental health by committing to a strict regimen of yoga and meditation, it is nonetheless susceptible to the same fate as other Plans.

This does not distress me, because Epicurus (who is swiftly becoming my favorite Greek) tells me it should not.

Plans are nice and have the potential to add great joy to your life, they also can create misery, pain, suffering and strife. Well, as can everything, I suppose, but these things matter not. Epicurus lived his life believing in the value of pleasure and doing what brings you pleasure, like creating cathedrals that may never be completed.  And while I am not well-read in Classics, nor Epicurus, nor Architecture, nor Gaudi (thanks, Wikipedia!), I can read well.  And I can copy and paste well, too.

For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia, peace and freedom from fear, and “aponia”, the absence of pain, and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends.

At the outset, this was to be an entry about my renewed career as a student and my passion and love for all things Academic (I even researched the etymology) and it didn’t even really end up there either. How’s that for an example.

 Plans, as small or as big as they seem will fall apart. You will die with uncompleted projects, some worthy of being continued by others, mostly not. This is not cause for distress or for fear or any other negative emotion that will take away from one moment of your ataraxia.  Do what you will with whatever you will, but seek pleasure! To me, the tragedy in Gaudi’s plans are not that they were uncompleted upon his death, but that his sole-investment in their progress near the end of his life put him into seclusion, away from camaraderie and basic and simple pleasures we are able to pull from life.

When I am older, I want to have the following clarity, which is taken from a letter written by Epicurus to Idomeneus, as Epicurus lie in his death bed without child or wife, suffering from kidney stones:

“I have written this letter to you on a happy day to me, which is also the last day of my life. For I have been attacked by a painful inability to urinate, and also dysentery, so violent that nothing can be added to the violence of my sufferings. But the cheerfulness of my mind, which comes from the recollection of all my philosophical contemplation, counterbalances all these afflictions.“

To live, to live with pleasure and to live well.

Let’s plan on it.