Time, Again.

For every one thing that we do with true excellence, I think there are a thousand blanketing things that we've done without interest or joy, no meditation, no attempt to learn. Done instead out of some insinuated necessity, but without wanting it, without taking it as part of our jumbled and purposed living.

So now we have to go to work, or to school, to jury duty, to cross the street. So shift it back.

And don't worry. I'm not addressing anyone but me. If you concur at all or nod along with me, if you feel even a touch of "Well, okay," then it can be for you, too. I won't mind.

And it's not about talent. Which of course, everyone has in one way or another. Sometimes it takes forever to tap into them, catch them, if you will, hone them, demonstrate them. But they are there, waiting to be discovered and exercised, sitting on the hind legs of their ability, ready to wave, here I am, can you see me now. They are the things we do with inherent skill, with a somewhat breathtaking ease, in a way that causes your audience, your world, to stop, to stir, to soak in your resurrection or dissertation or execution.

Perhaps your talents are quiet, buried. Maybe you are a natural in starting conversation. You can do handstands, make jokes, be sincere. Maybe you strike poetry in whatever you see. Perhaps you are patient.

We could spend our hours or our lives doing things that we're simply good at, but what exactly are we good for? Just because we may do something doesn't mean we should, or just because we are doing anything doesn't mean it's what we're intended to do or how we are meant to do it.

And I think that when this is the way we arrange ourselves, the way we set ourselves into molds we can certainly contort for but not quite capture. We end up waking up numb, traveling dead.

When Henry David Thoreau compared the killing of time to the permanent debilitation of eternity, I stopped. And each time some passing person has often commented, well, at least we're halfway through the week, or, can't wait until this year is over, or, one more day until the weekend, with lifted hands of hope, I've stopped. And I've been confused. And I have been torn in my response to these reactions. I've yet to understood why we've been encouraged to merely pass our lives. To skip ahead to the better points, to wish for forwarding along, for faster pace, for seemingly dull or uninteresting moments to simply go by unnoticed.

On that note, I find it difficult even to comprehend boredom. I find it inherently impossible. With a moving world, an earth that overflows with newness, a place that expresses its constant need for us to stand at attention. To be here, and to wish to pass time? To wish for the end of the day as a new one has just begun?

Something's wrong, then.

Something is wrong with the way we are cherishing (or not cherishing) what we have and what we are doing with it.

If we don't want time, then we have not used it well. We have not seen it, really seen it, as infinitely miraculous.

I propose that we love our Tuesdays with the same unabashed ardor that we do our Sunday afternoons. Let's love winter. After we are embarrassed by our mistakes, let's remember them. Let's not wait for another day to do what matters to us right now, to do what we appreciate, to exercise our right to (dare I say it) enjoy being alive. Whatever natural rules and restrictions are above you, whatever bookends hold you in a certain corner, if some constraint should tie you or toss you, digress. It is there, and it is purposed, hopefully. It has not come to stand in your way to be. Instead, it is part of your being, difficulty and all, it is your time, it is you.

So to pass time, to kill time even. Why want to get it over with before it has been loved? Endured, often, yes, but truly full, truly magnetized for what it has given you, not what it has taken from you, rejected of you, required of you.

If Thoreau understands that our time is intentional, and if nature beats on without asking permission, then what exactly are we waiting for?

Why are we the first to create the movement, yet always the last to get on board?

No, we aren't only supposed to forever sit in a basement just painting masterpieces. Though if that is your vestal need, hold on to it. Because the best part of living is that it is balanced, even without our even footing. I'm not suggesting that we live only for ourselves or only for what we deem entertaining or easy. I'm just hoping we can find what is good in what we go through, that we'll never reach a point where we sincerely wish for the end of something, wanting to wander ahead, wanting to do without, to only carry on.

Don't wait.

Don't miss this.

But don't wait.