English Language Lesson: Rolling Stone, the definition

How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
- Bob Dylan song, 1965

Moss doesn't grow on a rolling stone. - Old English Saying

ROLLING STONE is a great term for English language lessons, simply because it is so famous. The ROLLING STONES are perhaps the greatest music band ever. Their longevity extends from 1964 and they are still performing at high energy and producing new songs more than 40 years later. ROLLING STONE Magazine is one of America's most influential entertainment and culture magazines since the 1960's. Rolling stones can be found all over the world.

A rolling stone is a person who never settles long in one place, who is constantly on the move. I meet wanderers, gypsies, "ex pats", and other rolling stones quite frequently in my travels around the world. Many professional musicians are rolling stones - traveling from city to city to play their music and sing their songs.

If you often wake up in strange hotel rooms wondering which city this is? You're a rolling stone. If you know the subways in Tokyo, Beijing, and London better than your local highway system? You're a rolling stone. If you get an impatient feeling when you've been home more than 3 weeks? Definitely you're a rolling stone. I should know. I'm a rolling stone.

Let me introduce you to some of my favorite rolling stones:

Yvon Chouinard - Famous mountaineer, inventor, outdoor adventurer, environmentalist, and owner/founder of Patagonia Inc. Yvon Chouinard has been one of my heroes since the 1970's. In his early years, he was a famous mountain climber who traveled the world and built the world's best mountain climbing equipment. He founded and built two wildly successful companies, all the while using his unique principal of MWWA - Managing While Wandering Around. In recent years Chouinard has concentrated his enormous energy and talent on using his company to promote environmental causes around the world. Recently he wrote and published a superb book about his life in successful business, called Let My People Go Surfing. A truly inspirational rolling stone, he is.

John Green of Green Sales Guy, Inc. - world-wide traveling salesman, story-teller, and friend to many. John sells machines, technology, and materials worldwide in the composite materials industry. We work together quite a bit. John has boundless energy, enthusiasm and great humor whenever I see or work with him. It seems like every day is Christmas when in the vicinity of John. He has the great ability to take a common machine tool and talk with so much enthusiasm that it seems like the most advanced technology ever built. Although a world traveler, John is terribly dedicated to his family and takes great delight to show his family pictures to everyone. No moss grows on this rolling stone.

My brother Alan - he was a rolling stone for most of his life. Any country in the world, he's probably been. Early in life he traveled America selling soap from door to door. Then he traveled the western USA searching for oil and other treasure. For some time he traveled around America with circuses displaying the world's largest horse. Then he ended up in Antarctica, South Pole, New Zealand, Mexico, Thailand, Israel, all over Europe, Africa, and who knows where else? But of course --- he ended up in China, meeting a great Beijing lady and finally marrying her. Recently the newlywed couple settled in Michigan state USA. Maybe Alan is a rolling stone no more. In his stable days he should write a book of his adventures, calling it something like, “NO SHIT, THIS REALLY HAPPENED...more or less”

I have met many other rolling stones: musicians, salespeople, engineers, adventurers. I’m a
rolling stone. I have had tremendous adventures and tell fantastic stories that are ...more or less...true. What can I say? The far horizon is calling me. The next curve in the road whispers an irresistible invitation. The distant mountain commands me to come. How does it feel to be a complete unknown, without a home, just like a rolling stone? I think I know that feeling.