Time

“Time is on my side.”

- Mick Jagger.. Well actually Jerry Ragovoy writing as Norman Meade, but Mick Jagger made it cool.

My antivirus just notified me that I have enjoyed one year of free service and it is now time to renew. I’m pretty sure I did that last week. Right after I posted my last blog..

I’ve been away for a bit and lots of things are happening in the BD&LL world. Quite honestly, I need to catch up. I’m going to go do that now but don’t worry, we have that elapsed time technology available here.

So here’s what I have as a recap since I’ve been out:

- Summer arrived

- Jason attracts bears

- The Real Estate business drives other people besides myself to drink

- Someone has made a grand oversight in allowing us to have a radio show.

- Stuart Scott makes me cry

- I now know what #100HappyDays means

A little over a month of time elapsed. Also in that amount of time, someone cut and pounded my wisdom teeth out of my head, I found out I hate vicodin, and I’m still wondering if these holes in my mouth will heal up. But that just sounds like an excuse and I did manage to write my bio during that slightly medicated time period. But quite honestly, June whipped by and July is on its way out. Time just seems to go faster the older I get. I don’t understand meta~level physics and the space-time continuum enough to comment on whether or not time speeding up could actually happen - theoretically or otherwise. Most likely it is my perception of time that is changing.

When I was younger, time seemed to move much slower. Waiting to turn a certain age - ages at which new freedoms and responsibilities became available - could be excruciatingly slow. So many changes, so quickly, and constantly that it actually made time feel slower. So much living in such a short period of time. Now, things don’t change and I’ve entered “the grind” as it is known, and just living for the weekend makes days, weeks, and months blur on by.

Another personal observation on time: I spend a lot more time looking back at things that happened earlier my life than I did before. Maybe it’s a “good ole’ days” nostalgia, maybe it’s frustration that I had to grow up and get a “real” job, but part of me believes it’s because I’ve lost some direction towards the things that are most important to me including artistic and academic pursuits that seem to be in a holding pattern. You don’t spend a lot of time looking backwards when you’re faced forward. But regardless of how I feel about time, how I feel about what I’m doing with my own available time, it keeps ticking by; completely unaware of me and unforgiving.

Time isn’t so much the life lesson here. The life lesson is how you spend that time. Time itself is a human construct used to make sense of our world, to record our history. But the passing of time, that onward indefinite march, is indifferent to the human world, without concern for its justice, morals, and especially without concern for second chances.

Lately, I don’t feel like I’ve spent my time most wisely. I’m concerned about accomplishing things, of being “something,” of doing “something” with my life. Struggling a bit with my current position and my perception of myself. Much like the protagonist of the #100HappyDays challenge, I feel I am overlooking the things that truly make me happy and understating their importance. Which almost got me to sign up for the challenge. But I’ve reconsidered for a couple reasons:

(1) I read a blog where the challenge actually had the opposite effect and it made some good points I won’t mention here. But google it, you’ll find it. I promise.

(2) I need to blog more, not find another thing to do on the interwebz.

So, I’ve decided to make my move for “Councilman” rank in the BD&LL pyramid scheme. To the uninitiated, this means I must post once a week to maintain rank, learn how to use twitter, actually drink a Banana Daiquiri, and make pilgrimage to Red Lake Falls, Minnesota to learn how to drive a bus and mediate fights; and their aftermath.

Consequently, I probably won’t be doing many thematic posts, but rather just blogging about the stuff I do, what makes me happy, probably even the shit that makes me angry and imperfect because that’s real life. Moments of triumph, moments of failure. “You know, strikes and gutters, ups and downs” Also, by consequence, I need to actually do stuff to fill that time and those blogs. It may become “lessons in mundane life” but I promise to do my best to “keep it real” and relatable - and add pictures with fuzzy retro lighting! We all have the same set of basic emotions and life experiences in idiosyncratic proportions and I think I can make my daily moments of delight or frustration seem like a group activity rather than me just being a smug asshole.

For the challenge, I will do this for the length that Jason is now doing his 100 days + the net days I’m behind. About 15 blogs, one a week, into the month of October. #BDandLLHappyDays

Sorry, Mick. Time, is on its own side. But we can choose how, with what and with whom to fill our own time and in the manner we do so. That lesson, is one that I could use plenty of study and guidance on. But sometimes we have to be our own teacher. Here’s to an experiment in living.

~Listen to this: Our Lady Peace “Spiritual Machines” album.

~Guilty pleasure listening: The All-American Rejects “Move Along” album.

Further reading:

“A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmsophere of quiet that true joy can live.” ~ Bertrand Russell from “The Conquest of Happiness”

“One reminder: if change were to stop--that is, if Becoming were to cease--time has no refuge in which to hide. Time is no longer, because time is a measure of change in disguise.” ~ Paolo Soleri from “What if? Collected writings 1986-2000” (Good luck finding this one in the local library, but still, a great mind.)