There is always a fire to be put out. Sometimes, those fires feel like all-consuming infernos, and it prevents us from focusing on anything else.
***
Ever since my cancer diagnosis in 2022 time has felt like a gravity that pulls at me harder every year. It drags me further from the things I want to achieve. I want to take more control over it–get up earlier, work later, be more efficient–but that’s not how life works, is it? I have a full-time job. A family to care for. My father has been sick. I need more sleep than when I was a young man. Our own government has conspired (more than usual and more violently) against the most vulnerable of our neighbors, which makes it hard to focus on anything else.
In short, the gravity is strong. Stronger than me.
***
I joke that we should all be given money to live and do whatever we want until we’re middle-aged, and then be forced to work until we die. That way we might be able to enjoy life a bit while we’re still energetic and relatively healthy. Because I have to wonder what purpose we’re allowing ourselves to fulfill if we spend our youth stressed out and distracted from our ambitions, and our twilight years too broken down and tired to pursue them?
Of course it’s a stupid idea. Or is it?
***
One year ago I was just beginning a four-month sabbatical. For the first time in my life I had some freedom over what I did with my time. What did I do? Glad you asked.
I wrote. I finished a novel draft and a screenplay.
I watched movies. Immersed myself in the art form that I first fell in love with when I was a kid.
I walked. Tried to get lost once in a while.
I visited my wife at work for lunch. Got to know her coworkers.
I volunteered at the food bank. Met the people that help those who have been failed by our government and society.
I got involved in the local political scene. Tried to do good in the community.
In many ways, I became more of the person I have wanted to be for years.
And then I had to go back to work.
***
I often think about the amount of time I’ve wasted. Standing in line. Waiting for meetings to start. Being in meetings. Browsing social media. Driving from one place to another.
I started a poem once about asking Heaven’s data analyst (named Dan because I’m pretty sure all data analysts are named Dan) about how much time I lost doing these things we have to do for no other reason than we designed systems that waste our lives. I tried to turn the poem into something hopeful by re-framing our lives not as the number of hours lost doing meaningless things, but the amount of time spent doing things that make us happy. Holding our loved ones. Petting dogs. Laughing with friends.
But it felt disingenuous. I never bothered to finish the poem.
***
If we spend a third of our lives sleeping, and nearly another third at school or at work, how do we make the most of that last third? For many of us, we can’t. We’re too tired. We have other responsibilities. That gravity just keeps pulling us deeper down. And all we can do is reach for the infinite possibilities in the sky above us, even as it gets further and further away.
***
If you can’t do those things, does it mean you don’t want it badly enough? Does it mean the world has conspired against you in some way to prevent you from realizing your ambitions? Is there blame anywhere, either within oneself or with society at large or with the Universe itself?
How much great art have we lost out on because a single mother didn’t have the time, energy, or support system to create? How many people with disabilities could have created something deeply meaningful if only the world wasn’t working against them? What of incarcerated artists? The working poor? Those who decide that instead of dedicating themselves to art, they will dedicate themselves to their community?
Should art be a privilege for only those with time, money, or both?
***
The standard advice is to protect your time. Guard it with a fierceness reserved for insecure men in law enforcement. When you want to write, put a “do not disturb” sign on your door. Find 15 minutes each day to write 100 words and in a year you might have a long short story. Get up at 5AM and write, bleary-eyed and hurried. Sacrifice one thing for another. Choose. Always choose.
***
I wish I had something constructive to say. Some trick or secret I’ve discovered in all the time I’ve wasted fearing that I was wasting time.
I don’t.
My hope is that one day I’ll figure it out.
