Time

My understanding of time weighs heavily on me as I age. While physicists would have me believe that there is no past, present or future in a Universal sense, my life, as I perceive it, is trapped in the bottle of time and space. Just so many heart beats. Just so many breaths. Just so many sunrises.

The trick of living well within the constraints of time, in my opinion, is to maintain an acute sense of the passing of it. Busily wasting time is the great disease of the age, as electronic screens distract and dominate the minds of many, who live with the delusion that the structured reality on those screens is somehow controlling or enhancing their actual life. Just so much whistling in the graveyard, as I see it. Meanwhile, these over-wired unfortunates are being buried under their self-inflicted pile of information. To what end? In most cases, to make money or spend it. In other cases, to build an illusion of community with two-dimensional relationships.

Some turn to hedonism to soothe their recognition of time-limited life. Go rock-climbing in New Zealand. Sample wine in the Loire Valley. Cruise to Alaska on a floating city while enhancing your girth at endless buffets. Have a sex holiday in Vegas. I have been subjected to the boorish accounts of these attempts to season an otherwise empty life. Filling life with pleasurable events does not yield a full experience of human life in the end.

The essence of my daily practice is intentionally focused in the moment as a way of coping with time and space. As my awareness of the vastness of the Universe and the miniscule size of my own life converge, I channel my energy into making each available moment count as best I can. Time is the precious currency of my life. If I am to live a life of value, dignity and compassion, I must try to do that in each moment. To do less is to squander the only true wealth I possess. Time.