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Making your mark

Several years ago, my son received a book as a gift:  Ripley's Believe it or Not! - Planet Eccentric!  At the time, I remember we leafed through it with some interest, but as often happens around here, the book found its way to the back of the bookshelf for the next few years, gathering dust. During a major post-Christmas room-tidying day in Ryan's room last week - a project we seem to do every year at this time, to make room for the newest loot - the Ripley's book was uncovered, and resurrected to life in his bathroom-reading bin.  This morning, I noticed the book laid open on the edge of the bathtub to a page that had a picture of an Indian man from New Delhi (Romesh Sharma), with his 33-FT LONG FINGERNAILS.  (Note, these are on his left hand only....dude's gotta have a hand free to clip those toenails, I'm sure). Now, from the photo I'd hazard a guess that's 33-ft TOTAL between all of those fingers.  They have curled as they've grown into long tube-like talons if you can picture it, and thank heavens somebody's painted them  lovely stripes of blue and green.  They kind of look like blue-and-green candy canes, which doesn't sound very nice for fingernails, but if I envision the unpainted versions I'm immediately certain I prefer the colourful variety. Now, Mr. Sharma claimed this record back in 2003, so I have no idea if he's still kept his long fingernails after earning this "talons-of-the-year" title, but this and all the other crazy "claims-to-fame" in the Ripley's book made me wonder:  WHY do people do these intrinsically pointless things?  I mean, there are probably thousands of examples of these people in this one book alone, and that doesn't even account for all the other contenders who were in the running, competing against the ultimate title-holders.  There's a guy (I think from England) with his entire upper body and head tattooed (and he's bald, so it's his WHOLE head); a lady from the US who has a collection of over 200,000 hubcaps, and a man from Vietnam whose hair had grown to over 20.3ft long after not having a haircut for 38 years. All over the world, people do these pointless, trivial things and for what purpose?  I suppose the reasons are as individual as the record-holder, but it seems to me these folks all have one thing in common:  they want to make their mark somehow.  To be known for something; remembered for something; to stand out from the crowd.  I guess to a certain extent, there's a bit of that in all of us.  We all want to feel special, in some way, shape or form.  And what "shape or form" that is, is different for everyone. And who's to say which "mark" is more meaningful or valuable than the next?  Well I can't help myself, but I find it really easy to pass judgement on THAT point.  I know, I know, "judge not, lest ye....."; yeah yeah, whatever whatever.  But REALLY, people!  No offence to the hubcap woman for example, but imagine if all the time, money and effort she puts into collecting hubcaps were instead diverted to doing some kind of charity work?  Are "hubcaps" really where your heart is? Now of course, I'm making assumptions that this woman, and anyone else in the Ripley's book that collects thousands of useless objects, doesn't ALSO do some kind of "good work" in the world.  Maybe the hubcap lady spends her mornings volunteering in a soup kitchen, feeding the hungry, and spends her afternoons collecting discarded hubcaps for free, just for kicks.  But I can't help myself from wondering what is the point of this kind of thing?!?  Isn't there a more positive, and more meaningful way we can make our mark here? I guess that shows what I think.  Now to make sure that I'm making my mark in a meaningful way...

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©2023 by Kelly Wagner

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