About Time

The first day in August has caught me by surprise. Didn’t July just begin the other day? Wasn’t it June just the other day?

The speeding up of time is a well-documented phenomena among us older folks. One theory is that, with each decade the government increasingly (and secretly) taxes our time, so there’s just not as much of it to experience. But I mostly subscribe to theory of the diminishing proportion. Each day or month or year of my life is an increasingly small proportion of the whole of my life to date, therefore it goes by quicker.

For example, one month 5.5% of my grandson’s life. For me, 5.5% of my life is 42 months or nearly 4 years! But looking at facts on the ground, it seems pretty clear that even this does not capture the radical difference of time in our lives. Young toddlers change much more in one month than I do in four years. So maybe it’s not just a percentage thing.

As I approach my sixty-eighty birthday in November, I am aware of moving from young-old toward middle-old. (Right now I’m saving old-old for somewhere around 80 so I have something to look forward to.) I’m trying to notice the changes, both the losses and the gains, as I move through this period of my life.

Old age is often disparaged in our culture, but so far I’m quite enjoying it—at least this first part. I certainly can’t do what I used to be able to do, but the urgency of making something of myself and to accomplishing great things is slowly releasing me from its fierce and anxious grip.

These days, each day seems less and less a discrete unit of time—less and less measurable. A ‘day’ is more like a convenient label for something that turns out to be quite elastic. Or maybe ‘days’ don’t really exist. ‘Day’ is perhaps an unsubstantiated label we’ve created for convenience, then taken for real.

For me, the days and weeks and months of my life feel less firmly attached to linear time. I have less of a sense of moving through time and more appreciation for some continual unfolding that can’t really be measured. While this is not a boon to those who email me and want a timely response, it is a distinct improvement in my quality of life. I am, on my good days, released from the tyranny of time and the scourge of busyness. Though I am often engaged in doing this or that, teaching or talking on the phone or working in the garden, when I am fully present, I am less bothered by controlling some imagined future outcome and more able to enjoy what is already here.

So, welcome to August, whatever that might mean. And if you’re waiting for an email from me, I promise to respond….some day.

Personal Practice – Can you find your way into the timeless quality of the moment you are in? Stop several times today and see if you can locate anything in your experience that resembles a ‘day’ or ‘time.’ If you feel busy, take a moment to investigate what busyness really is. Are you busy when you are walking fast or working hard? Can you do exactly what you are doing and not be busy?