And Then It Was Thursday

The week has been moving by at a rapid clip.  Work was a wee bit busy - we were down to about fifty percent of our staff capacity (conferences, vacation, leave) so my email exploded all over my desktop and I am still trying to accomplish things and dig out from underneath it.  Nothing critical, just a high volume of stuff.  Stuff makes the working world go around.

I'm coming up on my regular three day weekend and at this point I am planning on taking all three days as clean days off just because I need them. All the critical stuff will wait until Monday because, and here is one of the vast secrets of the corporate world - most things that get called critical aren't. Most dates are imaginary and pulled semi-randomly from the calendar "just because". I try not to let them get to me and just keep working steadily.  We do what we can do with what we have.

On the personal side on Monday I took my friend Bob (cancer) to an MRI appointment and then I was poised to pick him up from chemo last night, but they ended up admitting him for a few days due to internal bleeding.  I spoke with him in the hospital and he seemed to be in decent spirits, all things considered.  I ordered him a power chair a little earlier in the week and it should arrive Monday and he's finally agreed with the idea that he needs a good wheelchair (he has an old crappy one that he's been using but you spend half the time fighting the wheelchair) and a good rolling walker.  Fingers are always crossed there.

Other than that, due to the volume of work I haven't done much on the personal side this week.  Mostly I've just been focused on work and the other obligations of life.  It seems that I used to have more free time, but reading back through my blog, that wasn't the case. I've been complaining about time for years.  Maybe it is just something I do.

Right now, I am going out and getting some lunch here as soon as this teleconference I am wraps up. I'm kind of hungry and I seem to have recovered from the french fry issue earlier in the week, though, like anytime you get a spot of bad food it takes a couple of days to recover from it, so I ate lightly and blandly over the last couple of days.  On that note, I hope your day is going well.

Time Devours All Things - Oct 5th Photo

"Tempus edax rerum" - Ovid (Time devours all things.)

This is my pocket watch. I alternate between carrying it and wearing my wrist watch. For reasons I don't entirely understand the pocket makes me more aware of the passage of time. It is as if the time that moves on the pocket watch is a more stately time, a more serene time.

The pocket watch also puts me in mind of one of my favorite short stories - "The Paladin of the Lost Hour" by Harlan Ellison, in his collection "Angry Candy". It was also a critically acclaimed Twilight Zone episode (from 1985). I like the closing narration:

"Like a wind crying endlessly through the universe, time carries away the names and deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we were, all that remains is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment. A blessing of the 18th Egyptian Dynasty: God be between you and harm in all the empty places you walk."

I often look at time as the true coin of our lives. We have second, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years - but we have them in a finite number. How we choose to spend time, more than money, more that any other thing, is what shapes our lives. Are you conscious of hour you are spending the coin of your life? Are you aware what you are buying? Is it worth it?