Time

I was danced and caked and polar dipped, sound healed, bathed and loved this birthday. Scrumptiously. Best ever. And now that I am taking a meander around the other side of the number game, cake eaten and candles back in the top drawer, the starting gun opens track for another year around the sun.

Birthdays for me are when finitude settles in. If we humans can each reasonably expect 28,000 days on planet earth, and I have used up 22,325, I have a real interest in figuring this time thing out.

One response to my hourglass could be to do the extraordinary. Paragliding from the highest mountains, dive the deepest oceans, save a million people from destitution. Make billions. As if legacy really matters. Will it 150 years from now? And do I really care? I answered that for myself as a mediocre student of philosophy long ago. Nope.

Another very rational response was to do nothing and let the nihilist in me take undue advantage of all on offer in our society. That is also an unsuccessful strategy as I really do like people, I love the wild things, and they love me. Loving like that is too close to a meaningful existence for the nihilist.

The response I have used for most of my life is denial. Living with the unconscious fantasy that I am godlike and will be able to do everything in this one lifetime. I wrangle the confines of my schedule to complete my to-do list, only to find that the emerging space is fill up with even pettier details and expectations. Not a great strategy for a useful innings.

What if I change things up? Spend time to create something meaningful to me, that is out of time, immune to it’s confines, timeless? What would that look like? Perhaps a work of art that uplifts and only occupies space, a song that resonates and fits into a floating time capsule whenever rendered to voice, a child that takes over where my time ends?

That feels a lot like the legacy response, living for an imagined future. Yes, but could I also be fully present and delight in the minuscule daily routines of mixing my paint, washing the family clothes, reading bedtime stories, while also consciously steering the big picture towards some out-of-time art, a new generation of immaculate humans, or a music score to fill space and never die? If particles in the quantum world can be in 2 places at once, I can certainly hold two perfectly good responses to finitude at the same time. Presence and legacy. And why not?!

The past and future have always been alive. It’s the present that has always been the problem. Trying to be present, (oops there she goes) is an inner negotiation that un-present’s me. And then the social media bots have me totally nailed. A constant struggle. Calling in the attention police. Help me put my attention on things that matter.

Or at least get into the habit at looking at what I am doing. There it is.. the middle way of joy.

360 more days till birthday-breakfast-in-bed returns. Let’s see what I make of time then.