Time is Undefeated

Follow my twisted Okie logic for just a moment if you will. There are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 52 weeks in a year. When it comes to the parameters of time this may be all we can agree on. The only separation on the concept of time is that as we age it tends to move faster. In the last sentence note I referred to time as a concept because it is not tangible, that is to say you cannot reach out and touch it. Neither was the tooth fairy; but that didn't keep us from getting a shiny new quarter. Now days I hear people spin tales about kids getting five bucks and that can only mean one thing, either inflation is taking hold or their parent's cheese has slipped off their cracker,

Not so long ago I mentioned to my son the fact that as we age time goes faster. He is fairly sharp so his reply to me was, "how can that be dad, time is unchanging." That's true, he is right. But it feels like it's going faster so doesn't that count for something? When we felt like we hated liver and onions as a kid didn't that too count for something? Did that mean that we secretly loved it? With that thought in mind one could say that the saying "time waits for no man" is spot on. Like an Oklahoma breeze it blows through our lives and robs us of our youth when we aren't looking. Then comes that day when we walk by a mirror, and we no longer recognize our reflection. There is no secret sauce when it comes to aging, you must only let your head hit the pillow and awaken the next morning to the sound of your alarm to realize you are a day older. But something strange happens on the eve of our fortieth birthday, the hour hand starts to spin widely out of control. However, the good news is that I have been told by those that went before me that (and I quote) "shit doesn't get real until we turn sixty." I almost called that good news until I realized that's less than five years away. Just remember, if you jump out of bed and don't miss the floor it's going to be a great day. Time is the undefeated heavyweight champion, and it's a bit like Mohamid Ali it can take a beating and just keep coming back, that fact will always be so.

Since the beginning writers, musicians, and scholars have obsessed over the subject of time. Author Henry Van Dyke once wrote this, "Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, and too long for those who grieve." This essentially means that the movement of time into, well wherever it goes is relative to how we are experiencing it. Musician Jim Croce wrote a song about putting time in a bottle, but I am sure he failed at that, otherwise he would still be with us. Albert Einstein claimed that time was merely an illusion. Being thoughtful people, we can only ponder just what old Al meant. Mr. Einstein was a scholar few of us could comprehend, or maybe he just experimented with peyote in college, either way I am not astute enough to know the difference. It would seem that is above my pay grade. Being from a simpler place and time I prefer the way Clint Black laid it down in his song "no time to kill." "Legal tenders never going change the number on your days, the highest cost of living is dying, that's one everybody pays." Just because a man skips college and instead teaches himself to play the juice harp and train his Chihuahua to run a dimmer switch on and old Buick doesn't mean he can't be deep. Does it? And just remember, when you chose to embrace your life that means you must accept all of it, the good and bad.

When people speak of modern convinces like washing machines, electric toothbrushes, and Velcro shoes as being time savers, I have but one question; where does that time go? If you chose to use a clip-on tie, where will you be able to store those fifteen seconds you gained? Trust me, if you disrespect time, it will leave cleat marks on your forehead. If you find yourself in a coma or even a jail cell time will not wait for you. That seems unfair, doesn't it? We must all understand that from the moment we are born we begin to die. Dying is as much a part of living as being born, it's simply the end of the trip. So, we can choose to live our lives in a deep dark depression, or we can make the most of every moment. No matter how you chose to live your life it will not change the outcome. Let the realization motivate you, not deflate you.

I have said it before, but it bids repeating, the moments that drive our lives are not the extraordinary, it's the mundane. Fresh faced happy people with biscuits and gravy in their belly's, and a happy song in their hearts are not the rule. They are simply the exception to the rule. The exceptional circumstances of life are held together by the glue of the mediocre. If you find yourself on your porch swing on a warm evening watching the lightning bugs with a glass of cold sweet tea in your hand you can either give yourself pause and relish the moment or ponder about what else, you might be missing. But why do that to yourself?