Here’s an expression that I think we could do without: the bucket list. You know what? Fuck the bucket list.
The “bucket list” is an invocation of death—a calling-in of the once-before-I-die.
“When we fear death, we fear living.” (Harry A. Wilmer, Practical Jung)
It turns out that everything in life is a practice. You get good at what you do, and you are those unique things that you do most often—not the things that you’ve only touched once.
Practicing doing things just once is a good way to get good at nothing—and to become nobody.
On the other hand, when you learn something through repeated practice, the meat of your brain grows, and those neural connections quite literally make what you do part of who you are.
So, forget the bucket list, and the once-in-a-lifetime experiences. If you want to be somebody, practice what you love, and let those things become who you are.