Ulysses Bucket List
August 26, 2017 5:40 AM   Subscribe

Before saying goodbye she turned to me and asked me a question that has become a wonderful part of my life; she asked me, “Tell me something you have done, or want to do, that you think I should do? It can be anything, as challenging as you want it to be, or as easy. As long as you give me the rest of my life to complete it, I promise I will do it."

The project, dubbed the "Ulysses Bucket List" due to the challenge given to the OP, has a subreddit. It was also discussed on Reddit's official podcast.
posted by divabat (21 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
So was it /r/amazingtruestory or /r/plagiarism?
posted by sammyo at 6:13 AM on August 26, 2017


Ulysses' bucket list
* get away from Polyphemus Circe
* hear the mermaids singing
* eat a peach
* get home to Penelope
posted by moonmilk at 6:47 AM on August 26, 2017 [54 favorites]


This is a lovely story that I will assume is true. The author clearly was moved deeply by the challenge and the results of the challenge.

I'm 32 and trying to figure out how to live my own life. In my teens I picked up all sorts of ... ideas. Ideas that I thought were rules. I picked up all these inadvertent rules and lived my life in my 20s according to those rules. I didn't follow the rules all the time, but when I broke the rules I felt really, really bad about it. Really anxious - "These are rules about how to live a good life, a happy life, and I broke the rules, which means I am not living a good, happy life."

Now that I'm in my 30s I realize that those rules were based on sad coincidences that were absorbed into a life desperate for love and security. I'm trying really hard right now to get rid of those rules and just live my life. Just live it.

I was quite disappointed in myself a few weeks ago when I (queer, atheist, liberal) was told by my friend "When I was having a difficult time in my relationship, you gave me advice that was identical to that given by my conservative, religious, protestant coworkers." As much as I think I'm a different person, I am still the same person and always will be.

So I'm trying to be more selfish. I'm trying to do things that I know will make me happy, instead of things that I know will be good for me. But I'm running into trouble because.... I don't actually know what will make me happy! After so many years of living in the [guilt + hedonism - - - - - - - - purity + stoicism] spectrum, the idea of genuine joy seems much less obvious than I ever thought.

The Ulysses reader suggests that everyone should expand their lives to try things they never even thought of doing. I think this is because - the rules we created for ourselves, we are so wrapped up in them, we don't know where they begin and where they end. It's by doing "crazy", uncomfortable things - things that only a stranger would suggest - that we can break that mold and discover that our rules aren't actually aligned with reality. For us, anyway.

I'm not going to read Ulysses, and I'm not going to ask strangers to tell me crazy things to do. But maybe I will ask my closest friends, "Hey, what's something I've never been interested in doing with you, that you wish you could share with me?" Maybe.
posted by rebent at 6:57 AM on August 26, 2017 [35 favorites]


Eponysteria.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 7:07 AM on August 26, 2017 [14 favorites]


She asked me to read V by Pynchon, it took me 150 tries, then I picked up that paddle and carried it inland until someone put it in my butt.

Ulysses is a waste of time.

Edit 1:fixed some spelling mistakes. Going to leave 'clam' as is, haha!

Joyce would approve.
posted by adept256 at 7:19 AM on August 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


Also known as the (semi)recently not renewed show 'No Tomorrow'
posted by Nanukthedog at 8:04 AM on August 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


This sounds kind of like a variant on the notion of saying yes to everything someone suggests for a year. I think it's better when it comes from a person, even a stranger, who you get to know at least somewhat or have a conversation with, 'cause then they can make a better suggestion of what they think might be good for you. No doubt I've gotten a lot of ideas from people I've only recently met that have made my life more interesting. As you mention, rebent, I think a variant on this could work with existing friends as well. Hmm.
posted by limeonaire at 8:27 AM on August 26, 2017


Listen to Ulysses read aloud by a good narrator. It makes a world of difference.

I love the book, though, and I get something new out of it every time I read it. Gravity's Rainbow, on reread, just grossed me out.
posted by tully_monster at 9:36 AM on August 26, 2017 [6 favorites]


I am too disabled and autistic for this challenge, thanks.

I always have to wonder with these "I tried new things/pushed my boundaries and loved it!" stories how much they're leaving out. How many things weren't good experiences, were a waste of time, or were even detrimental. I'd like to hear some of those stories sprinkled in.

I tried to push my boundaries past week by going out to a brewery with my new classmates and instantly regretted it. I didn't even drink, and it was still bad. I knew it was something that was very likely going to be a bad experience for me and lo and behold it was. I mean, it didn't cause me any lasting harm, so fine, whatever, but I wish people would acknowledge how often these boundary-pushing experiences are just plain bad, along with the good.

And yes yes, you can say "well now you learned it's not for you!" but I pretty much already knew that. I just didn't know that also, drinking establishments are sensory hell, and I'm not sure that knowledge greatly improved my life.
posted by brook horse at 9:52 AM on August 26, 2017 [15 favorites]


drop acid and ski the most challenging mountain you've ever known
posted by philip-random at 9:59 AM on August 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm confused: did we ever find out if the OP and Amanda found each other or not? I'm guessing we did not.

This is kind of reminding me of how Sarah Bunting is always looking for the guy named Don she met on 9/11 and so far he's never been found.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:59 AM on August 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


Ulysses is a waste of time.

Lord knows I've wasted time in worse ways than reading Ulysses.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:15 AM on August 26, 2017 [9 favorites]


@jenfullmoon: they did.

Relevant info therein: Amanda reveils that she picked Ulysses because she hoped he would never get through the book.

...which (leaving their ages aside) just tells me that half of the things strangers would order me to do wouldn't necessarily be "life-changing experiences" but oftentimes just mean dares or random stuff they can think of in just this instance.

Taking 14+ years to read a single book doesn't sound to me like Yoinkie2013 enjoyed reading that particular book all that much. I like rebent's modified idea a lot better, to be honest.
posted by bigendian at 10:31 AM on August 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


>...which (leaving their ages aside) just tells me that half of the things strangers would order me to do wouldn't necessarily be "life-changing experiences" but oftentimes just mean dares or random stuff they can think of in just this instance.

Yeah. I don't want to be an old cynic, but I skimmed to the part where one of the 'challenges' was to jump into cold water without testing it first and I thought, whelp. Either the challenger didn't know much about cold shock or maybe they were a hardcore YOLO or maybe they were being incredibly unkind.
posted by AFII at 11:15 AM on August 26, 2017


Here's one I wish every young person gets, Vote!
posted by Beholder at 1:26 PM on August 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


I did something like this with Nabokov's Ada or Ardor. I was failing at reading it for five summers in a row. I finally threw out my frustration randomly on twitter and a follower responded that she'd love to read along with me.

We blogged our way through that book and then started a separate blog about reading Nabokov novels, which we maintained for 3.5 years. She ended up becoming one of my closest friends and we've met in real life a few times and have annual meet-ups in the middle of the country because we're separate by a province. We eat good food, get drunk and wander around in a museum for 3 days giggling with each other.

I'll always be grateful to Nabokov for bringing her into my life. She's one of my best friends and is like family at this point.
posted by Fizz at 2:03 PM on August 26, 2017 [11 favorites]


All of this being a reminder, that I need to try new things more often. To take some risks. This was a great share/post. Thank you.
posted by Fizz at 4:55 PM on August 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


Listen to Ulysses read aloud by a good narrator. It makes a world of difference.

Ulysses is experimental prose poetry. The lilts and turns of it's phrases are hypnotic music. I was working a night shift on Feb 2 1982, and I heard most of the text recited in that epic Ulysses (broadcast), and the words came alive! That contentious final non-punctuated chapter is composed in a literary code that makes sense when heard spoken out loud. Ulysses is a book that works really well in audio book format if you like this kinda unconventional poetic thing.

I think that the best way to read Ulysses is to read one page at random before going to sleep every night. The time that I'd read through Ulysses was when I was on painkillers after an operation, it was okay. Finnegan's Wake is on my list. I've heard that it's impossible, but I've been told by a Gaelic speaker that it's just a folly of Gaelic jokes loosely translated into English.
posted by ovvl at 6:46 PM on August 26, 2017


drop acid and ski the most challenging mountain you've ever known

No broken bones, so I got that going for me.
posted by StickyCarpet at 4:18 AM on August 27, 2017


I really love Ulysses, but I know it's not for everyone. About ten years ago, some friends and I started a book club that met at bars and the first book they chose was Ulysses. It was something like my third read-through and I was charged with captaining the process. The idea was we'd read one chapter per meeting and discuss with annotations, etc, over a pint. By the first meeting, about half of the book club had dropped out citing "hazing." The rest of us kept going, with variable success (I think we lost about four more readers during the "Nighttown/Circe" episode, but a couple came back for the finale). At the end, the six or seven left had a celebratory evening at an ersatz Irish pub called the James Joyce, and enthusiastically voted* to delve into Blood Meridian as our next book. If you can get around its reputation, the novel itself is a lot of funny, dirty jokes and bodily functions and stupid arguments and weird, dreamy passages set in fairly mundane locations. Having read the book, it's weird that Ulysses has become synonymous with Complexity and Pomposity and Pretension because Joyce spends some portion of the book in question skewering (sometimes hilariously) those very ideas. And when I read this post, I did stop at the end and wonder, "I hope this seemingly sincere girl with her inspirational challenges is prepared for her personal bucket list topper to be a weird, often-silly novel full of masturbation, dick jokes, booze and the kind of ludicrous dudes you kind of hope won't sit next to you on your morning commute."

*That core book club lasted for another four years and we went on to read a marvelous list of novels and works of non-fiction, many of which became my all-time favorites .
posted by thivaia at 7:14 AM on August 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Ulysses can be delightful and engaging, especially if you've spent some time reading for pleasure and understand some of the tropes and eccentricities of the language that fascinated Joyce so much.

The prompt is not, however, a question.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:32 AM on August 31, 2017


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