Jennie Raff Photography

I love the guys on this show, but even more, I love the idea: at the beginning of every show, the guys ask, “So, what do you want to do before you die?”  The four guys have all kinds of outrageous stuff on their lists, and they check things off systematically on the show. The catch is that they always help someone else check off their answer to “the question.”

For instance, the guys might decide to ask out the girl of their dreams, throw a huge awesome party, or make a million dollars, but they also have to help someone from whatever town they’re in to do something, too. Oh, yeah, and they ride around the country in an RV.

It’s such a fun idea, and the name of the show comes from another favorite of mine. It’s from a poem “The Buried Life” by Matthew Arnold. The poem urges the reader to rise from the dead and to love and live deeply. It’s so beautiful.

“I knew the mass of men conceal’d
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal’d
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;
I knew they lived and moved                                     20
Trick’d in disguises, alien to the rest
Of men, and alien to themselves—and yet
The same heart beats in every human breast!

…

But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;                        50
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us—to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.

…

Only—but this is rare—
When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,                                               80
Our eyes can in another’s eyes read clear,
When our world-deafen’d ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caress’d—
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.
A man becomes aware of his life’s flow,
And hears its winding murmur; and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.            90

And there arrives a lull in the hot race
Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face,
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
And then he thinks he knows
The hills where his life rose,
And the sea where it goes.”

I’ve got to admit, at this time of year I’m always thinking of what I either want to change, do more of, or do differently in the coming year. So, what do you want to do before you die? Or in the next year?