by Martin Anton Smith

“Hi I need directions”

“Oh, well where are you going?”

Oh, I guess anywhere will do!

“Well then, any road will take you there”.

This is one on the great old movie lines,

So much so,

The late talented songster Mr G. Harrison wrote a song about it.

His variation of the line was

“If you don’t know where your going – any road will take you there”.

There’s a simple beauty to the idea & the sound of that line.

There’s a gentleness to it.

There is no judgement.

It says – it’s ok to not know what the hell you’re doing.

And artists take solace in that –

Because Artists & Writers are famously “woolly-minded”.

Of course, an accountant would hate that line.

It would make them feel, in their own way –

er…let me say….quixotically queasy.

They’d rather rephrase it as

“If you don’t know where you’re going –

well you should have taken that postgrad diploma then,

like I told you when you graduated”.

Some of us are risk adverse,

Some of us like the adventure,

Of not knowing what you’ll do;

Today

Tomorrow

Next Week

Next Year

Next Decade

Next Life.

Now excuse me, I must find that street called ‘any road’ –

Other wise I might not get there.

Alas this was my vaishingly small ode,

To that very much underrated thing,

That those drab-un-joking-careermen fear so much:

Uncertainty.

While us bad Artists, would be Writers, & not quite Quantum Physicists,

Just spread it on our toast each morning.