Tag Archives: time

Lost Time

Do you ever worry about the amount of time that is lost by the frivolous indulgences we have? I’ve been known to sit on my balcony and simply stare at the sky, sometimes it feels like it’s for hours. Is that lost time? At the end of the day, you curl up in front of the TV and watch some so incredibly inane sitcom that you can’t remember the plot 10 minutes after you change the channel. Is that lost time? How about sleeping, or resting when your body is prone and your mind is turned off. Is that lost time? My answer to all of these questions is an emphatic no!

When I’m sitting, staring on my balcony, my mind is constantly in motion. Story ideas, post ideas, quips, would that work for a poem or is it more of a short story? My mind is percolating some new idea. It is very rare that I can ever turn it off. On my desktop is a file called In Progress. It is where I put the bits, I can’t make grow but I feel they are worth saving. There are two short stories in there and a poem. There used to be three short stories but after several years of it sitting in that file, I had an epiphany. And I wrote one of my sweetest love stories. It still makes me cry. I am such a wimp!

We lead busy lives. We work hard, we play hard and we live hard. We need downtime to recharge. And let’s face it, we invented time so we can’t lose it even if we tried. It’s always creeping up behind us and screaming that something isn’t right. We are expected to be somewhere or something must be completed forthwith.

Our minds are constantly being bombarded with input. Faces, names, advertising, directions, the list is endless. But we need time to sort out what has been imported. We read, we hear, we feel and we see. Now we have to unscramble it and have it make sense. Sometimes that is easy to do and it’s done almost instantaneously, other times it requires a little more thought. And that thinking requires us to stop. Have you ever gone to bed with a problem nagging in the back of your mind only to wake up with a solution in front of you? That’s because you turned off and let things work naturally. Our minds and our bodies are incredible tools but they need time to recharge.

Many years ago, I knew a woman who read Harlequin romances on a near constant basis. I have never cared for that particular genre but she said it gave her an escape that did not require her to think. She was an incredibly busy woman with a business, a husband and two children. She was constantly on the go. But the books she read took little time and little effort and it gave her a release that she had not been able to find elsewhere. It was not lost time to her.

As a species we are not built to always be running in top speed. We are not automatons. We will burn out and so many do. And perhaps that is the lost time.

The Concept of Time

27 Replies

In the beginning there was nothing. And within that nothing was more nothing. And then there was something. The Big Bang was the beginning of something but it had no name, it had no form, it simply was. The something grew, it evolved over millions of years and eventually it became us. We as a species need to control, we need to name, to label and to judge. So, we named the nothing and the something and they became ours. We created the concept of time and it was good. Or was it?

“I’m late, I’m late! It’s such a horrid state!”

Does this sound familiar? We are corralled by time units. The alarm clock goes off at 6:30 so we have time to get ready for the day and be in the car by seven to make it to work by 7:45 so we can start work at eight. Lunch is at 12 o’clock, work ends at five, dinner at seven, drinks with friends at nine, bed by 11:30. And repeat, repeat, repeat. We may have created the concept of time but now time rules us.

There are time pieces everywhere visually blaring out the exact second we are living. We wear watches, our cell phones show us the time in huge neon numbers. We stare at the clocks but it is time that is staring back. I know it is a necessary evil, the world needs structure and that structure is bound by the units of time. But sometimes, just sometimes wouldn’t you like to turn it off?

Once upon a Time the world was ruled by the sun. It told us when to get up and it told us when to sleep. But then we harnessed the sun and created artificial ones so we could take over control. That is what we do. We take control. We’ve subjugated the world to our liking and our conveniences. And it is good. Mostly. It is in the folly of our hubris that we actually think we have been the victors. We will learn, hopefully in time.

But it is not the entire world that is ruled by our dictates. Some places have managed to escape the hunger for more and they live within their means without the concept of time. It is hard and sometimes untenable. That is not a world I could inhabit. I like the comforts afforded me by living within time. But I can still dream. I can dream of wide-open spaces and quiet gentle fields. I have camped in the wilderness where time has no meaning, where the sun is once again King or Queen. It may have only been for a week or so at a time but it was precious to me. And the memories I retain will always make me wish for a simpler time

Evolution?

36 Replies

The planet we inhabit was formed about 4. 5 billion years ago. Since then it has been evolving, growing, changing. It has only been able to support life for about 3.5 billion years. We arrived about 200,000 years ago. A little late to the party but we have made one hell of an impact!

And we as a species evolved. We no longer grunt to communicate because of course that’s rude. We tamed our world and beat it into submission. We harnessed the power of fire and air and water. But it was a long time getting to where we are now. And where are we going? We have caused so much damage on our journey but not all of it was our fault.

As a species we are greedy and we always want more. Perhaps we are still children in the greater scheme of things and like children we always want… But we are also curious and that curiosity leads us to go farther and farther from our home. We want to learn and that is perhaps our greatest asset. But like children we need to be cautionary. We need to learn to take small steps before those giant leaps. We have taken some big leaps and failed miserably but we learned from our failure. We are resilient and if we can temper our insatiable curiosity just a tiny bit then perhaps the future is not bleak.

As individuals we are also evolving. We have come through the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthal to Homo sapiens. It was a long journey and there are a few who seem to be reverting back to an earlier stage. We tolerate them. But we are trying. We are trying to correct our mistakes, perhaps not as quickly as we should have, but we are trying. And perhaps that is all we can expect. Or maybe that is the mistake. Maybe we need to reach for the stars and expect to reach it. Could that be the next step in our evolution? What we are willing to do to reach it? Are we willing to give up who we are for who we could become? Am I? Are you?

That is the frightening thing about the future: we don’t know what to expect. We can hope but we won’t know until after the fact and history records what happened. But we can work towards a better future if we work together. And as an unrepentant optimist I believe that our future will be wondrous. Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but the distant future is what I believe in. Just as I believe in me and you.

Daily Quip

17 Replies

Procrastinating is a waste of time.

Addled

27 Replies

An addled mind,

The dreams won’t let go.

Struggles to wake,

This battle’s for show!

There’s grit in my eyes,

And drool on my lips,

A crease on my cheeks,

And a kink in my hips!

I must be alert,

For this life I now live.

Expectations galore,

They take and I give.

All work and no play,

Or play and no work,

The rhythm’s all off,

I feel such a dork.

The answer is plain,

To questions I ask,

It must happen now,

An ominous task.

But do it I shall,

By the strength of my will!

I should be remembered,

For ages until . . .

I lay down beside me,

My pillow is soft.

Another five minutes,

Of dreaming aloft.

Shady Quip

13 Replies

Time on this planet is short and there are those who are taking up too much of it.

The Building’s Listening

18 Replies

This building has a story

Of ups and downs and love gone wrong

Of broken dreams and silly pranks

A childhood fondly lived.

But broken windows and sagging doors

Don’t hide another truth,

Illicit deeds and crimes concocted

Guns and knives and bloody wounds

Death has lingered here.

But now the future has a stake

Windows broken can be repaired

The doors and walls and ceilings too

And then the fun begins,

The floors and windows once again

Will hear the children laugh.

Pouring rains and winter storms

Are not welcome here.

Come inside and sit a spell

Our tale is still being written

This building’s taking notes.

My Memory Bank

15 Replies

I was talking with a friend the other night and she told me how she was going to take her two young daughters away for a Girls Weekend. I started to remember the wonderful trips I had taken with my parents when I was a child. Some trips were only for a day, a week, sometimes for a weekend and once for month. I cherish those memories! I remember being in a camper trailer and not having access to fresh milk. I was so excited to go a whole week without having to drink milk. I hated the stuff before the trip, loved it afterwards!

More and more of my childhood memories started to pop to the surface. They had been filed away just in case I wanted to look at them again. For a moment I wanted to get lost in the past. I could remember the feeling of my father’s arms as he carried me to bed. I could fall asleep anywhere. I could remember the smell of my mother’s hands when she was baking in the kitchen. I could remember the springy hair of Beau Brummel, our miniature poodle when he had been rolling in something noxious and he knew it. Damn, he was a smart dog!

Sadly, I knew I had to put them back in the vault or I would truly run the risk of getting lost. But I knew they were there. Locked safely away. Or so I thought. My mother started to lose her memories but she had told me the stories so many times I remembered them for her. We used to laugh about it. What happens when I’m gone!

The stories that she told me happened to people who are no longer alive. Who will remember them! My stories, my memories, what will happen to them? What will happen to my Memory Bank? I guess the question is a matter of beliefs. What do you believe? Do you believe that we live on in another form or are we recycled into the ether?

I don’t know. I know what I want to believe. But I don’t know. If Heaven exists it must be pretty crowded. Of course the same thing could be said for Hell. I do not believe the human mind is capable of understanding the next step. I certainly don’t. I don’t think logic comes into it and that is where you rely on faith.

I have my wonderful memories and one day they will all fade into the Cosmo as will I. Until that time I am going to continue to make deposits into my Memory Bank. How about you!