Don't have time for this, don't have time for that, don't even have time to be alive

Monday 1/8/24

Anyone who tells you--and this kind of person always makes a point of telling you--how busy they are should be avoided.

There's this temptation to think that you, notable person that you are, with so much to offer, etc., will result in them making time for you, but the reality is, they have time, they're just always trying to find a way to sit out their own life.

People love to say that life goes by so fast and our time is really limited. These same people like to say that they're so old, too, or project that on to others. "You know you're old if you remember watching the original Night Court."

I remember doing that. Was I old inventing a new form of narrative over the weekend? How about while running those thousands of stairs?

Funny--it's always just me doing the things I do. And they are notable things. Things of substance and consequence. Of energy and passion and life.

People want to speak for you, but they're terrible at even speaking for themselves.

You have plenty of time if you're always, or mostly always, trying. If you're living, or mostly always, living. I don't mean always trying your hardest, always living your fullest.

I mean that you're putting in a reasonable effort and you're present more often than not. Rarely is your thumb up your ass. You're not sleeping until nine and then doing your latest brunch. That is where the time goes.

People lose time, they think, driving places. You can do a lot while you're driving. Do you know the things I think just when I walk to the cafe two blocks away? Do you know what my mind formulates? Creates? Do you know how much I wrote while running icy stairs this morning?

There is a decision we can make to be on. Just as there's this tendency to slide into the off position and stay there. You can do a lot of what is asked of you--which often isn't that much--if you're in the off position, especially if you're not asking a lot of yourself, which hardly anyone does. Then that becomes the mode. The rut mode. The whinge mode. The "It really does go so fast" mode. The "Aren't we old" mode.

Choose a better mode.