Time

As part of my effort to increase my knowledge of Stoic philosophy, I just completed reading On the Shortness of Life by Seneca. As with nearly all of my philosophical readings, it will require rereading.  

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. 

On the Shortness of Life

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

When we reach a certain age, we can look over a life extending back to that blurry time when facts mingle with fiction. We can try to linger over certain periods that stand out because something meaningful was happening: sports, college, first dates, vacations, first jobs, people that made an impression on us, books, sights, sounds, etc. Our memories are full of disconnected events that are recalled for a variety of reasons. The odd thing about time is that it flows forward at the exact same rate whether we are 5, 15, 30, or 80. Rich or poor. Famous or unknown. King or slave. Time is a constant regardless of how it seems to us to flow fast or slow. Whether we waste it on meaningless pursuits or fill it with significant endeavors is up to each of us. And we each know how to identify our wasted time.  

I spent half my life chasing women and getting drunk. The other half I wasted.

A Walk in the Woods 

We can't go back, and the amount of time left in the "jar" is unknown. When we are down to that last bit, clinging to the sides, you can bet it will not be the best of the time that was allotted, but we will work to scrape out every last bit. If we will only look at these present days and see them as precious as those final ones.  

Unfinished painting from 15 years ago...

What we can do today is guard our time to make sure we are using it wisely. Not that we treat each day as if it were our last, but that we treat each with the full awareness that it could be. Our days should be filled with a proper amount of meaningful activities, and simply getting things done, while avoiding the popular "killing time" as if there were such a surplus. I'm including this unfinished painting because of all the ways I have spent my time painting seemed the most fulfilling. I stopped painting and now I look back and wish I had continued to work at it. Lost time can't be found... 

In the end, our time is the most valuable of possessions and each of us is given only a certain number of hours, months, and years.  

Exposition on the curse of deferring life by the act of waiting for something to happen:

And waiting means hurrying on ahead, it means regarding time and the present moment not as a boon, but an obstruction; it means making their actual content null and void, by mentally over-leaping them. Waiting, we say, is long. We might just as well--or more accurately--say it is short, since it consumes whole spaces of time without our living them or making any use of them as such. 

The Magic Mountain

Thomas Mann

Don't wait for anything: vacations, promotions, elections, pensions, revolutions, etc. Live this day and consume and digest it completely. Keep well.

Postscript:
As a result of my entry about time and the quote from Thomas Mann, I picked up my old brushes and, instead of waiting for the right time to start painting, I started to paint. 

Six Blocks (24" x 30")