stuck in a "run down" condition

I walk by this house every time I walk to the beach at Nantucket. For over 10 years this house has looked the same, run down. Today a thought came to me that just needed blogging, this house is stuck in a run down condition. I not sure why, but obviously the owner has no aspiration for the house. Paint on the windows is peeling and plants are growing up around the house. I wonder if the house "feels" hopeless.

I then thought about peeps I know and have known who have been stuck in a "run down" condition (maybe even myself at times). I don't think it is a function of age. I have seen students stuck and I watched my father-in-law age to 93 who never seemed stuck short of the last few weeks of his life, even in the midst of circumstances (health) that was not going to change. I saw him motivated to get a dog at 91, he wanted to buy a new gun and a horse just a month before he died. While the things he had enjoyed to do in his life were no longer available to him, he still loved to take "road trips", to go places and see things. He continued to aspire to something and never got stuck.

So maybe the answer is in the way peeps manage their aspirations. Hopelessness (being stuck in a run down condition) need not be a result of circumstances. Its a matter of whether one's spirit can continue to reach out, to keep moving and growing, to stay interested in something. These are like a paint job for the soul, like weeding the flower beds and cutting the grass. Peeps who continue to scratch the itches of their soul will never be stuck.

Somehow this run down house (some would now call a shack) reminded me of all the things I can still aspire to, even as my possibilities diminish with age. Maybe this house can inspire U 2??

just saying .......