The "Other" Essentials

[moira finnie]

The "other" essentials of life might be interesting to discuss as well as those much-disputed cinematic essentials. Here's a few that you might consider filling in--just for fun--which may have occurred to you as Real Life Essentials.

For the sake of discretion, let's assume that those skills in the boudoir have been thoroughly mastered and satisfied by each of us, and--just for once, time and money don't curtail your enthusiasm or curiosity. So, answer any or all of the following, or make up your own, but if you had your "druthers", which of these Essentials might you choose to name?

Five Essential Skills to Master in a Lifetime
1. __________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________
4. __________________________________________________
5. __________________________________________________


Five Places to Visit Before Shuffling Off this Mortal Coil
1. __________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________
4. __________________________________________________
5. __________________________________________________


Five Essential Tools in Your Kitchen
1. __________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________
4. __________________________________________________
5. __________________________________________________


Five Essential Books to Read in a Lifetime
1. __________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________
4. __________________________________________________
5. __________________________________________________

Five Essential Things to Pass On to Others
1. __________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________
4. __________________________________________________
5. __________________________________________________

Five Essential People from History You Would Like to Meet
1. __________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________
4. __________________________________________________
5. __________________________________________________

Five Essential Things You'd Like People to Know About You
1. __________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________
4. __________________________________________________
5. __________________________________________________

[movieman1957]

Five Essential Skills to Master in a Lifetime
1. Listening.
2. Being tactful.
3. Some sense of order in your life.
4. Fair play and respect.
5. (For me personally) being a good husband and father.

Five Essential Tools in Your Kitchen
1. Fridge
2. Oven
3. Can opener
4. Knife, fork and spoon.
5. Garbage disposal. (essentially unnecessary but wonderfully useful.)

Five Essential Pieces of Music to Hear in a Lifetime (my change)
1. Beethoven's 7th Symphony
2. Tchaikovky's 6th Symphony
3. Copland's "Appalachian Spring"
4. Brahms' 1st Piano Concerto
5. The Beatles' "Revolver"

Five Essential Things to Pass On to Others
1. Life is not fair or easy but can be enjoyable.
2. There is someone to love you if you will wait.
3. It's not about getting everything you can.
4. Time flies.
5. Not everybody is a nice guy.

Five Essential People from History You Would Like to Meet
1. Beethoven
2. Washington
3. Lincoln
4. Churchill
5. The Apostle Paul

Five Essential Things You'd Like People to Know About You
1. I play piano/keyboard in my church band.
2. I dearly love my wife (23 years) and my kids.
3. I've a deep appreciation for music and great respect for people who create it.
4. I'd like to be as knowledgeable about movies as all of you are.
5. I had my own radio show one summer a long time ago.

[pktrekgirl]

I may do others later, but I'll do two easy ones for now:

Five essential tools in your kitchen:

1. Coffee maker.
2. Refrigerator
3. Stove
4. Microwave
5 Toaster Oven


Five Most Important Places to Visit:

1. A war memorial in a country other than your own - preferably a country with which your country was at war. My personal votes from among the places I've visited: First place: Hiroshima, Japan. Second place: The Killing Fields outside of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Third place: The Anne Frank Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Fourth Place: The American War Remnants Museum, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Fifth place: The Central Museum of the Revolution, Moscow, Russia.

2. Paris, France - arguably the most important city in the world from a cultural perspective. Key to this adventure is several days in the Louvre, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur and environs, Versailles, the Musee D'Orsay, a stroll down the Champes Elysées, the Eiffel Tower, and the opera house.

3. Italy - the entire country is one giant archaeological, historical, artistic, and religious treasure, but of critical importance are Rome (the Vatican and all things related to the Roman Empire) and Florence (Art, art, art!!! And the Medici family. If you see ONE piece of art in the entire world, see David.). Venice is nice, but you can do it in place of that trip to Euro Disney you were planning.

But Italy is more than it's archaeological and historical treasures. More than any country I know, this is a country where the citizens know how to RELAX and ENJOY LIFE. It is chaotic, loud, disorganized, and never runs on time. If you expect anyone to abide by or care about things like traffic laws or posted hours of operation, you have come to the WRONG place. Italians are not too big on the idea of following rules. But Italians understand the concept of "You only live once" better than the citizens of any other country I've visited. And IMO, this concept is an important one to master. This is the REAL reason to go to Italy.

4. Japan - the complete antithesis of Italy. It is hard-working, industrious, soft spoken, extremely organized, and runs on time to the nanosecond. It's citizens are the most honest I have met in the world. I once lost an expensive gold watch in the very large train station located in Kyoto, Japan and assumed it was gone forever (as it would be in the U.S.). My co-worker in Tokyo called the train station 5 days later and was informed that not only did they have my watch, but they would be happy to Fedex it to me. Careful observation of the citizens of Japan will cure you of any complaints you have about over-work in the U.S. - office workers routinely work until 9 pm and only then begin a 90 minute commute by metro back to the suburbs. The Japanese understand the concept of working together as a team - or even as an entire NATION, better than anyone...and it is worth seeing this in action. Preferred method of gaining understanding of Japan and Japanese culture: going there on business. I learned more about Japanese culture from working in the offices of my company for a month than I did in all the shrines and temples in Japan.

Oh...and while you are there do take in a few shrines and temples in Kyoto, Mount Fuji...and as mentioned in item #1, Hiroshima.

5. China. A vast and beautiful country with many cultural treasures and a diverse population. Critical to understanding Asia, I think. Go before it gets too westernized.

I'd have put Israel/Egypt on the list (probably in place of China)...but IMO it is too dangerous to go there right now - especially if you are an American. No point in tempting fate when there are tons of other worthwhile places to go.

[jdb1]

Moira this is an excellent question, and one that requires a great deal of thought. It would be a wonderful thing if everyone in the world were made to consider these "essentials."

I have some answers, which probably are not definitive, but here's what I came up with:

Skills:

Non-attachment
Sharing
Emotional Balance
Defusing of conflict
Sense of humor about oneself

Places to Visit:

Outer space/another planet
North and/or South Pole
Mongolia
The source of the Nile
Tristan da Cunha

Essentials in the Kitchen

Bowl
Spoon
Knife
Stove
Sink with workspace

Essential Books: (a very personal list, you understand)

The Vedas
University of Chicago's Great Books of the Western World series
Encyclopedia Britannica
Oxford English Dictionary
Folger Library Shakespeare series

Things to Pass On:

All things must pass
You are much stronger than you think you are
Against the onslaught of humor, nothing can stand (that's Mark Twain)
Everyone has a story to tell
You can always hustle up more money, but you can never recapture lost time

People from History I'd Like to Meet

Jesus
Buddha
Augustus Caesar
Elizabeth I
Mozart

[SSO Admins]

Five Essential Skills to Master in a Lifetime
1. Riding a horse and roping a bull, or vice versa
2. Roofing a house.
3. Conducting a meeting that actually accomplishes something
4. Losing a fistfight
5. Taking blame to save someone else's reputation

Five Places to Visit Before Shuffling Off this Mortal Coil
1. Baltimore
2. Mars
3. Angkor Wat
4. East Village
5. Idaho (so you realize just how good the other four are).

Five Essential Tools in Your Kitchen (I'm excluding major appliances. Sheesh)

1. Really good knives
2. Zyliss garlic press
3. Cast iron skillet
4. Cuisinart coffee maker
5. Vintage Pyrex bakeware, made before it started sucking

Five Essential Books to Read in a Lifetime
1. Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
2. The Parade's Gone By by Kevin Brownlow
3. All of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars books
4. Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory
5. His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman

Five Essential Things to Pass On to Others
1. The right thing is usually the thing you least want to to do
2. Change your oil every 5000 miles
3. If you have nothing worth dying for, you have nothing worth living for
4. Be polite. There's no excuse for rudeness. I do not follow my own rule when driving.
5. Take accountability on yourself, but give the credit to others

Five Essential People from History You Would Like to Meet
1. Nathaniel Hawthorne
2. F.W. Murnau
3. Louise Brooks
4. Martin Luther King, Jr.
5. C.S. Lewis

Five Essential Things You'd Like People to Know About You
1. I'm a libertine in theory, but pretty straight in practice
2. Cats. Must have a cat.
3. I always try to multitask even though I suck at it.
4. I learn everything the hard way
5. I'm always willing to stop and talk to bums and street people

[pktrekgirl]

Here are a few more, now that I've had time to think:

Five Essential Books to Read in a Lifetime:

1. The Bible
2. The Seven Storey Mountain - Thomas Merton
3. The Story of a Soul - St. Therese of Lisieux
4. Out of Africa - Isak Dinesen (should be read especially by women who are sitting around waiting for a man in order to start traveling or putting some real adventure their lives)
5. (also mainly for women) The books in the Little House series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. And yes...it's okay to read them as an adult.


Five people from history I'd like to meet:

1. St. Therese of Lisieux
2. Thomas Merton
3. Pope John Paul II
4. Errol Flynn (I want to hear more hilarious stories about classic Hollywood...and adventure travel)
5. Isak Dinesen



Five Essential Things to Pass on to Others:

1. Take responsibility for your own life. Don't expect ANYONE to support you - financially, emotionally, or any other way. If you lean on anyone else, they will always let you down, and so if you want anything in life, figure out a way to get it yourself. Because in the end, we are all alone.

2. Life is not fair.

3. Money isn't everything. There are happy poor people and miserable rich people.

4. There are two (or more) sides to every story. Particularly if the end of the story involves a divorce or breakup.

5. Live every day as if it were your last. Don't sit around waiting for the right time, the optimal circumstances, or the right person. They might not ever come.

[jdb1]

It's interesting that some of us so far have left out the "five essential things to know about me." I've figured out why I left them out - it's essential thing number one about me:

1. My most prized possession is my privacy.

2. I think hypocricy is a worse failing than dishonesty.

3. I put a lot of effort into constantly maintaining my good humor
and calm demeanor, although it's gotten easier as I've gotten older.

4. I always try to deal with everyone under the theory that
no one in this world ever asked to be born -- it just happens to you.

5. I take great pride in the well-adjusted, kind, capable, smart and very,
very funny adult my daughter is becoming. She is by far my greatest
accomplishment.

[Lzcutter]

Five Essential Skills to Master in a Lifetime

1. Listening to others
2. Manners
3. Reading
4. Tolerance
5. Writing


Five Places to Visit Before Shuffling Off this Mortal Coil

1. The Lincoln Memorial
2. The Golden Gate Bridge
3. Grand Canyon
4. Hoover Dam
5. Radio City Music Hall


Five Essential Tools in Your Kitchen

1. Kitchen Aide Table Top Mixer
2. Good Olive Oil
3. Good Vinegar (non Balsamic) currently Pear Vinegar
4. Non stick Cook wear (ie Calaphon)
5. Fiesta Ware to serve the meals on


Five Essential Books to Read in a Lifetime

1. The Parade's Gone By by Kevin Brownlow
2. The Fifties by David Halberstam
3. Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner
4. Building Hoover Dam: An Oral History by Dennis McBride
5. Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion/Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi/PieceWork by Pete Hamill (3 way tie)

Five Essential Things to Pass On to Others

1. That time really does pass much quicker the older you get
2. That learning about the past is important for the future
3. That not every film ever made is a masterpiece but they all deserve to be saved.
4. That learning to take responsibility for your actions is the right thing to do.
5. That saying something stupid because you can is not a good example of free speech.

Five Essential People from History You Would Like to Meet

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. John Ford
3. Franklin Roosevelt
4. William Mulholland
5. David Sarnoff

Five Essential Things You'd Like People to Know About You

1. That Movies are Important
2. That Historical Preservation is Important
3. That Las Vegas is much more than Sin City
4. That honor and your word mean something
And when the time comes:
5. That I lived a good life.

[moira finnie]

Five Essential Skills to Master in a Lifetime
1. Learning to listen to meaning, not just sounds
2. Driving without getting upset at others (this one can be done)
3. Being quiet
4. Painting in Watercolor, (not easy)
5. Doing the Sunday New York Times crossword and acrostic in INK.

Five Places to Visit Before Shuffling Off this Mortal Coil
(not necessarily in the order in which they appear below)
1. Paris
2. Ireland & The British Isles
3. Italy
4. Tahiti
5. The Serengeti Plain

Five Essential Tools in Your Kitchen
1. French Knife and whetstone
2. Large wooden (not plastic) cutting board
3. Recycling Bin
4. Fresh Herbs in pots by window
5. Cookbooks galore (and a telephone and take-out menus)

Five Essential People from History You Would Like to Meet
1. Martin Luther King
2. Socrates
3. Eleanor Roosevelt
4. Delacroix, (even though he'd probably not deign to speak to me)
5. Cary Grant (So? He's a part of history as far as I'm concerned. Gotta have some fun.)

Five Essential Books to Read in a Lifetime
(only five is really tough)
1. The Complete Oxford edition of Shakespeare
2. Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
3. Essays of E.B. White
4. The Oxford Edition of English Poetry
5. Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung

Five Essential Quotes to Pass On to Others
1. Notice everything, turn a blind eye to much, and correct a few things. –St. Bernard of Clairvaux
2. You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself.-Ethel Barrymore
3. To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own.-Anne Morrow Lindbergh
4. Life's a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death. -Patrick Dennis (in "Auntie Mame")
5. There are three things of importance in life [in the end]: the first is to be kind, the second is to be kind, and the third is to be kind.-William James

[klondike]

Five Essential Skills to Master in a Lifetime
1. Rendering life-saving first aid, to yourself or a companion, when you are 20 miles or more into the wilderness.
2. Learning how to give a sense of hope, safety & comfort to a sad or frightened child.
3. Knowing how to say "I'm not armed!" in at least 2 languages besides English.
4. (For all heterosexual men:) Knowing how to unfasten a sober woman's brassiere without needing to end the kiss.
5. The confidence to dance in public without consuming more than a pint of booze.


Five Places to Visit Before Shuffling Off this Mortal Coil
1. The building (or acre of land) in which you were born.
2. The grave of your great, great grandfather.
3. Your country's capitol.
4. The original homeland/region/territory from whence your ancestors originated (For Native Americans/First Nationals: do some research! You could be much closer, or much farther away, than you think!)
5. Anywhere north of latitude 60 during the meteor shower and/or northern lights seasons.


Five Essential Tools in Your Kitchen
1. Fire extinguisher.
2. Bottle opener.
3. Big sharp knife, or 2.
4. Metal spatula.
5. Lots of cast iron pots and pans!


Five Essential Books to Read in a Lifetime
1. Walden (Thoreau).
2. The Fountainhead (Rand).
3. The Jungle Book (Kipling).
4. The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer).
5. Moby Dick (Melville).

Five Essential Things to Pass On to Others
1. The courage to love.
2. A commitment to fairness & decency.
3. The critical value of good humor, and good manners, under stress.
4. The absolute priority of protecting the hearts, minds & bodies of children.
5. Stewardship of the world's natural resources should be a sacred trust for everybody!

Five Essential People from History You Would Like to Meet
1. Queen Boudicca
2. Theodore Roosevelt
3. Nikola Tesla
4. Frank Lloyd Wright
5. Francois Eugene Vidocq

Five Essential Things You'd Like People to Know About You
1. I always endeavor to go to bed a better human being than when I started the day.
2. At my best, I feel I can neither repay my forebearers for their struggles and achievements, nor deserve the love shown me by my children.
3. Though a far from exemplary citizen myself, I refuse, under any circumstances, to condone or tolerate the behavior of dog abusers, wife beaters, child molesters or deadbeat dads; those guys all deserve my eternal, unmitigated disgust, big, daily rations of shame & guilt, and a corner office in the Hell of theirr own creation.
4. Most days, I'd rather not sweat the petty stuff, or pet the sweaty stuff.
5. If I end-up dying suddenly, I only hope it's somewhere with tall trees and lots of sky (naked women & alcoholic beverage wouldn't hurt, either).