April 28, 2009
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Life and Time and Stuff
Not the magazines. These are philosophical musings on life, and time… and stuff like that.
Time never weighs heavy on my hands. I don’t get bored. Last time I got bored, I was locked up. The fifteen months I was in prison was enough time to teach me how not to be bored with time on my hands. In the process it, killed something — a trait some people might call “motivation,” and others might call a work ethic. Whatever you want to call it (in psych and soc jargon it’s called, “institutionalization”), I can be contented in just about any situation and don’t need to be doing anything in particular to feel okay.
I have come to realize that I have a special relationship to time. I came to that conclusion through observations and consultations with many other people. Few, if any, of them feel as I do about time. For example, I didn’t feel any anxiety or regret about the passage of time as my Kid grew up. As he gains wisdom and independence, he becomes less of a responsibility and more of a companion to me.
Aging doesn’t bother me, although I could do without some of its side-effects. Of course, most of the stuff I’d rather do without isn’t really the effect of time alone, but more the consequences of my neglecting and abusing my body. My parents were told when I was a babe in arms that I would not live to grow up. My only sibling had lived only a few hours, a few years before I was born. I came through my birth in such bad shape that nobody expected me to make it. That fact, and my having become aware of it, has made each birthday I pass a personal triumph. I made it!
Sometimes, I get a bit demented and start feeling as if there’s not enough time to get stuff done, but if I’m honest about it, the reason for that is simply that I choose to spend the time I have doing other stuff. In the time sweepstakes, any way I look at it, I’m a winner.
Comments (7)
You most certainly are :0)
{{HUGS}}
~P~
abrazos
been reading and pondering Seneca’s writings..”The shortness of life” translated online here: http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/seneca_younger/brev_e.html a book by author Tim Ferris called the 4 Hour Work Week has been taking my attention..he, for a young man, has many pointing fingers offshooting his work that makes him a good study…between that and the 48 laws of power, I have a lot of time in a sweet ponderance…your perspective here, I like the direction facing it moves me…”I can be contented in just about any situation and don’t need to be doing anything in particular to feel okay.” I can honestly say I want this attribute and I am not there…
There’s no telling how much time you’d have to spend in jail before you got there. Some people never do.
I am envious of your ability to be satisfied in any time mode. I fight feelings of failure when I am doing nothing. One of the reasons I love going to the Y is that I commit myself to go six days a week and if I did not I would be sleeping and eating over and over. I hope that changes some day, but in the meantime it is the best I can do and be.
i’ve never ‘done time’ but i know that feeling. is it, perhaps, similar to complacency? not with things or situations complacent because i will (i suspect) never be willing to accept things as they are.
time only has meaning when it it wasted.
I was always dreading the passage of time. As if the day’s of my life were slipping through my fingers. Christmas became something I dreaded because I knew that with it, was another year behind me and another unknown ahead. Would I have time, I pondered? Is this my last Christmas, birthday, childs celebration… and then I got cancer and time changed for me. No longer do I dread a birthday and the fact that I have on more year under my belt and one more year closer to my existance being snuffed out. So, I get up on my birthday and Christmas and I am overjoyed that I was given another year. And I am excited to move forward into the next one. Big events like your time in prison and my cancer can forever change the meaning of time in your life. Thank you for sharing. I’m just getting back to Xanga and posting so please stop by in a few days when I have my new ramblings up.