Vision Statement for Me: A Model of Getting
By Joel Gunz
Originally appeared in The Anvil
I, Joel Gunz, envision myself as a debt-free adult who values honesty, integrity and no-expiry 2-for-1 coupons. As a Portuguese-American professional with an acquired taste for dark-roasted Ethiopian Yrgacheffe coffee, I shall serve my community by dispensing advice that is liberally salted with anecdotes from my life experience and by making ironic references to my failed relationships. I will quote passages from Charles Bukowski, some of whose work I will soon read.
My identity will be framed by a commitment to avoiding eye contact while describing my latest interactive marketing venture, which will give my listeners the general sense that I am both successful and modest. Likewise, my ownership of a clean, yet not-quite-perfect, 1972 BMW 2002 will lead acquaintances to conclude that I am financially secure, yet unpretentious.
With a full tank of gas in my car, two weeks' worth of boxer briefs and a prudent reserve of cash in an interest-bearing bank account, I see myself hitting the road to gather new, exciting and fulfilling experiences the way some people collect cereal boxes. For example, I may visit a Tibetan monastery. The monks may so impress me with all their meditation and peace and whatnot that I will arrange to meet the head monk in order to set up all-inclusive package trips to their monastery, enabling real estate brokers, Web developers and others to seek enlightenment. Scholarships will be available for documentary film producers and tenured professors from small East Coast liberal arts colleges. I envision receiving a percentage of the profits from the sale of these vacation packages, as well as a portion of the gift shop's revenue stream, which, I envision, will offer Buddha-embroidered golf shirts and so forth at a 400-500 percent markup.
My Five-Year Vision
Since one of my core values is to "think global/act local," before five years have elapsed I will have begun to value and cultivate the productive capabilities of those in my community, like Ignacio and Pedro, who live in the Winnebago behind Wal-Mart. I may hire them to help me during the harvest season when the Pinot Noir grapes in my vineyard will have reached maturity.
Which reminds me. By 2010 I envision owning a 12,000-square-foot craftsman-style house overlooking a vineyard in Yamhill Valley. A model of sustainability, this house will be built entirely out of wood reclaimed from Harry and David gift boxes and nails fashioned from discarded Hot Wheels. Its construction will be financed from the royalties earned by my novel about a detective named Newt Bronson, a salamander who is amphibiously at home in the "dry" world of law enforcement as well as the "moist" subterranean underworld. It will be a best seller.
In five years my pantry will be filled with a collection of the world's greatest sea salts.
I will invest my talents and resources for the betterment of others. A community of like-minded folk may drop by my house every other Thursday. We will sit in my Mission-style furniture and enjoy a bottle or two of Chateau Gunz. This enlightened assemblage of Seekers will talk about God, the perception of reality and the absurdity of their ex-spouses' demands for alimony. And then, after first bussing the dishes into the kitchen, they will leave.
Within half -a decade, my wife, whom I will meet at a writers' retreat on one of the Puget Sound islands, will have her e-commerce website up and running. The Plastiform bathroom appliqués that she designs, and which are manufactured by Ignacio's nieces and nephews, will be distributed across the Americas and Europe.
In five years, I envision myself in the kitchen. I will put my chocolate croissant down on the antique butcher block and look into the solarium at my wife, secretly watching as she bends over her design table, the morning sunlight filtering through her chestnut hair. She will catch my gaze and then begin to explain patiently, for the umpteenth time, that she needs to find a mail-order fulfillment company that will send its delivery truck to pick up her appliqués at Ignacio's trailer, instead of trundling all the way up to our house to get them because the diesel fumes give her migraines. I will love her use of the word "trundling," and the way she says it, as if she were hiding a marble under her tongue. I will smile, because I know that she always makes the wisest decisions in these matters. I will then return to work on my current novel, which, as I envision it, will become the voice of the 21 st century.
