Tag Archives: money

The Coming of Time

Posted on by

0

I am feeling like I am running out of time, that time is passing, running very quickly, away.  I have been facing this situation for more than half my life now.  I have been watching time leave me, quickly, without apology or recourse since I successfully graduated high school.  As all my friends and even a boyfriend of mine, and I, went our different ways, to grow  into adults, so that we could build our careers, we accepted the nature of the situation.  It was a serious reason that made it seem justly logical despite the sadness of a world forcibly ending.

I am thinking of all the things I neglected, as if I made decisions only for something that would make me shiny and acceptable.  That if I could put all the grades I made and the high marks I received  to some sort of justified means and end.  This, I believed, could make me happy with myself.  That if I was acceptable to society, being an owner of a real estate and a vehicle, and even having relationships with people who would be inside the house I would live in and own, then, I would be happy.  So, now, what is the situation?  What is the verdict?  Still, all the things I have neglected are things that are still being neglected now.  However, I do miss those things, like I miss those high school friends, and that high school boyfriend, because I left them behind.  I wonder, sometimes, in that big “IF” question way: “What if we had been able to keep in touch, would I now be married to a doctor, instead of an engineer?”  Would I be happier that way?  Or, would the very psychiatric-bent of my husband drive me crazy?  His ability to needle and manipulate my emotions, becoming the bane of my existence?  Or, would this be one of the smarter things that I would value in my husband?

The actual situation is that I have married an engineer, who, I do not understand.  At any time we have our argument, we each take out our secret weapons.  He, his very mind-boggling understanding of the world as the size of a dice cube, and me, my very touchy-feely, sense that disproves his mathematically-cubist world.  At these times, I do not miss the neglect.  I am engaged and nothing else really is wrong.  Nothing else matters.

So, why is it that when I look at the clock, I miss more than just time slipping by?  Why is it that my mind wanders, and I start to wish about having other things, things that for some reason, I imagine are better?  Better than what I have, which I have earned justifiably and with justifiably hard work?

I feel that if I don’t have the time to participate in things I once cared about, then, I will be a part of the world that neglects and leaves those things that matter.  That there will a be worse world in the future than in the present.  And, I fear, then, that the world will become worse, because I participate in those things that are worse.  This is world that will grow, whenever people support those things that help it become real.  These things, like almost all things, take time, take investment, and take space….  The willingness to go there, with ingenuity and belief, and love.

So, I am running out of time, and I am calculating the time as it flits away.  I fear for my children’s world.  I fear that we will neglect things too much, beyond repair, beyond recompense.  That it will take double the time and effort to just restore goodness when the bad and evil has taken it over, filling all knowledge and sense.

The logical thing to do, is to find time to start.  And knowing this, it is like I am my own creator of stress.  How many books will I have time to read on top of the life I have now?  How much will I gain from reading books, from watching movies, and from taking care of things I neglect, even though I will not worry about all of it any more?  I am running out of time.  There will always be things I will never experience.  I wonder and I worry if this will make me less than an acceptable human being.  That I will be a loser and an unpopular person for all of my life.  But, from reality, every single person has a life that is limited, beyond their control.  Some people, grow up quickly, and choose the limits, the neglect, but most people, live with the limits imposed on them.  And, even I, so gallantly writing this essay, feel that I am missing things that would make me better. I wish often, for things that money cannot even buy.  I look at the clock again, and again, it is fast, and I am left behind, with what happens outside of time–nothing.

So, I will try to remember my own advice.  When I think that nothing matters, I will remember that I have worked, earned, and lived, my life.  Everything that I have is because of me, and is honorable.  As my Grandmother says, “When you have all the time in the world, you cannot be worth it, until you are running out of it, and it leaves you for dead.”  Thank you, Grandma.

Beauty Is Real

Posted on by

0

Is something real, beautiful, or is something put into words beautiful?  I keep looking at the building construction outside my office window, and I keep seeing beauty in the materials, the strength in the colors of the cement and the wood and the steel.  Sometimes the rhythm of nail drivers, sometimes hammers, and even shouts of men’s voices and the crash of the things thrown, have a beauty that is heard.  The saw and the hum of the crane and the bull dozers is constant, like the many voices in unison can be heard, but not the words.

This scene is most welcoming, and almost soothing, in the morning after an hour commute.  Something human is constructive.  With a long day ahead, it is reassuring to believe it will work, that the frustration common in work is always happening, but things will be greater than this–especially the sounds continuing towards the establishment of something new–or even just a new building.

So, is the world filled with useless work?  Is some of this work needless, and wasteful?  Is the only goal to do something every day that you can do?  Or should your job verge, always, on the pleasurable?  Is it important that you be loved, or loved for your role, your position, your job?  If you have no money to spend on your home, do you still have a home?

In utopia, there is no money.  Only endless jobs to do, and therefore continually, and endlessly, make the universe work.  There is no demotions and promotions, related to money, but just achievement, the goal, since this is what makes people happy and proud.  At this point I think of my mother’s home.  For decades now, she has kept a special list, titled, “A Happy Home Recipe.”  It mentions things like love, loyalty, forgiveness and friendship, plus another four that deal with others helping you out, hope, tenderness, faith, and laughter.  For the longest time, I felt this was the most perfect, more beautiful thing of all.  The way I felt as if I were  being hugged, and loved.  I have no memory of being with my mother on a shopping trip to particularly buy this plaque, and I think, this is why I don’t associate its message with money.  I still think of it when I visit my mother.

Now, back to beauty.  Are beautiful things the only things that are real?  To take a thought experiment to the extreme end, the foible of human beings is to assume that beautiful things are naturally rich, and better, and easier.  Take all the glam and money in Las Vegas….  The stores there only have things that can be bought with a mortgage, and it is assumed that if you go to Vegas, you have some money to spend, or invest.  I have been there, and I do admit that my thoughts tend to run on and I see fountains running and spraying with coins rather than water.  It is like money can make the impossible happen.  Is it beautiful?  Is it even real?

Sometimes, I wish for more privacy than the hordes in Las Vegas can give me when I am on a trip or vacation.  The idea, I think, is that crowds there, fill the void common in any city or town.  It is along “the strip” that I am thinking.  In any other city, at a place of beauty, there is no sense of abandon.  That people are carefree and laughing, and not thinking of the priorities that need to be done by next week.  The “strip” is teeming with hordes of people, especially the young and rich, who exude this energy.  There is no rush, no hurry.  Only pleasure and enjoyment.  And, yes, lots and lots of money.  For most people any other trip or vacation cannot rival the wealth and riches of Las Vegas.  The non-stop flow of money in and out.  Taking a cruise to somewhere comes close, though.

So, in my thoughts, I am guessing that beauty is not limited to “real” things.  Every day, I draw breath, at the small things that happen.  The brown hare in our backyard.  The call of the infrequent owl at night when I have opened my window.  The construction sit that builds and moves slowly, by increments, like watching a stop-action camera become conscious and produce a film over months.  I love the first snowfall.  So delicate, and light, as if the snow is the real color of transparency.  I love the beauty of the old parts of town, where artisans have set up shop, creating and selling wares, of beauty and imagination.

I am looking forward to surprising my children to a two week vacation in December, for the Christmas Holidays.  Filling their days with some warm sunshine, and, hopefully, a sense of carefree joy.  To suddenly, one year have a Christmas away from snow, and attending too many get-togethers and parties.  I am sure where we are going, there will be a “Midnight Christmas Party.”