Mighty Girl is one of the blogs I have been reading since shortly after I discovered blogs, over a decade ago. I love the writing, I love the photos, I love the ideas. Today's post really made me think.

Playing the video and thinking about what it says, this has an awful lot of merit. At the same time, I think there is a lot of privilege in the idea of "just do what you love and the money will follow." It may be true that the money will follow, but life doesn't stop costing money just because you are starting to follow your passion. The "DWYLATMWF" premise assumes that you have a support system to keep you going in the meantime: parents, a significant other, savings, a patron, a government grant... Otherwise what do you eat? Where do you live? How do you pay your medical bills? For anyone who isn't starting out from a position of privilege, Do What You Love is going to be a hell of a lot harder. There are a lot of people for which "Do What You Gotta and Maybe You Can Pay the Bills" feels like an aspiration.

What are your thoughts? How do we make DWYLATMWF realistic for more people? I'd certainly love to make it work in my own life. Is passion enough to build the bridge from that point A to point B, or does it also require circumstances that may be beyond your control.

In my own life, in my own family, I look at how to make this work. What does it take to make this work? What does it mean if you can't?

Saturday night, while out watching the Perseids, I happened across an interesting scene at a park boat launch. A tow truck was at the top of the second ramp and people were moving around. Something was in the water, though in the darkness, I couldn't make it out at first. I thought perhaps a boat had sunk.

Then the facts of the matter hit me: a vehicle was almost completely submerged at the end of the ramp. Oh no! Looks like someone forgot to set the parking brake. As the tow truck did its work, a pickup truck, with open windows and a boat trailer behind it, slowly emerged from the water.

At one point, once it was out of the water, I noticed that the rear lights and windshield wipers were on, so the electrical systems had held up. However, given that it was likely running when it rolled into the drink, I'm willing to bet that the engine was most likely done for.

There were two people with the truck. I don't know who was responsible for it having rolled into the water, but I found myself hoping that it was the fault of the truck's owner. It has to feel awful knowing that you've ruined your truck. But having ruined your friend's truck? Oh lord. That might also ruin the friendship.

It was strange. I was out, having a perfectly lovely night of watching the sky and enjoying the meteor shower while just a few feet away from me, as a footnote to my evening, someone was having a bit of a nightmare. It rather put things into perspective. Also made me more appreciative of the excellent night I was having.