I decided, randomly, to start a list of things for my eldest son to do before I die. Not sure why, exactly, but I guess part of the operation of getting older is distilling down things into lists and ordered bullet points. It’s a scam, really, getting older. It presupposes you have any interest in the activity at all, but carries on with or without your help, not unlike my 1.5-year-old. Lists are the only defense we have against aging so we can get some stuff done. Maybe that’s why Buzzfeed appeals to so many senior citizens?

Anyway, here is the beginning of a list I wrote, just the other day, of items I want my older son, Finn, to do before I die. This isn’t everything, of course, but I’d love to hear yours in the comments as well. Or if any of these interest you, too.

1. Go Camping with Me

This isn’t a survival course. It’s not even an attempt at some primal ritual. I simply want him to see what the world was like before it became civilization, and sleep under a blanket made of stars. It changes you.

I remember the first time I went into desolation wilderness. It snapped me out of the idea that we had conquered this planet and everything it could throw at us. We are small, no matter how interconnected we become. The material universe has the edge when it comes to our tiny meatsicle bodies. For as expansive our minds can be, we will one day return to the ground, the sky, the air or the ether.

Plus, he should learn how to wipe his butt with a leaf and correctly dig a hole to poop in. That’s just good fun.

2. Take Something Apart & Put It Back Together

It seems as though the world is obsessed with keeping things together. Don’t fall apart. Don’t make a mistake. Don’t have an errant thought. Don’t post picture of your private parts on the internet. WE GET IT, PEOPLE.

But I want to ensure he understands the value to deconstruction and repair. If you can break something and fix it again, you have a leg up on those who’ve never failed or lost. You can reverse engineer your life. It’s just a matter of deciding which pieces are important and how they could fit together again. But sometimes you have reach a breaking point where nothing fits, and find a way to pull through. Or duct tape it.

3. Know What It Means Help People

I don’t think I truly understood what it meant to be alive until I knew what it felt like to help someone else. I want Finn to know that feeling, too.

4. Fly a Kite

Famed philosopher Louis CK has spoken at length about how ‘everything’s amazing and no one is happy.’ His point was that we have incredible technology and no one is satisfied. The act of flying a kite can look deceivingly simple, but there are lessons hidden within the mundaneness of twine and fabric. Watching the wind take something from you, and ask you to keep it aloft is a cool feeling. Way better than level 234123 of fucking Angry Birds.

5. Love His Brother

This was a somewhat recent addition to the list. I’m hoping it won’t take long, either. I know there is a flat, unadorned love between my two sons. But it’s my hope that my older son, in time, finds a deeper vein of love for his little brother. That they share things they can only tell each other. That they come to depend on each other, and cheer each other on. And stories of their mythical exploits fill the pages of books for years to come well after I’ve passed on.

I know. I can dream, can’t I?