Buddha-Gandalf – Photo: L. Weikel

So Little Time

This isn’t a post about time. It’s a post about priorities.

As you no doubt figured out already, I actually had in my mind the phrase, “So many books,” when I wrote the title to this post. But I decided to go with the second half of that familiar phrase instead. Because as much as you might think this is about books, it isn’t.

Yet it is true. I am a bibliophile. I have enough books ‘sharing space’ with me at the moment that I could probably go without having the television on for at least five years – and I wouldn’t repeat a single volume. That’s a lot of books.

Which makes me wonder. Will I ever read all the stories and references and other materials I’ve stashed here in my home?

Will I Ever Read Them All?

I’ve started to doubt it. And that’s a strange realization.

It’s the same with the various gifts I’ve brought home from my travels, especially my forays to foreign countries.

I’ve always made it a point to buy things for the people I care about while I travel. Little mementos. Pieces or items that reminded me of the person at home, yet had specific relevance to the country of origin. And then, once I’ve been home, I’ve held on to many of those gifts. Not because I’ve kept them for myself. (Indeed, if that were the case, that might be selfish, but at least I’d be using them!)

No, for whatever strange reason I talked myself into thinking by the time gift-giving time rolled around, that what I’d purchased wasn’t ‘enough’ or it wasn’t appropriate. So I didn’t give it. And then I felt like too much time had elapsed and they would think I was really strange for giving them a gift from a country I’d visited a year or two (and now more, sometimes many more years) later. So many loving, caring, and generous-of-spirit thoughts gone to waste.

I’m not exactly sure what I want to do with that vector of contemplation, either.

But they are tied together.

How We ‘Spend’ Our Time Matters

Every time one of these horrific acts of violence takes place, I ponder the lives of the people gunned down and imagine that none of them anticipated their life would end when they went to the mosque, the church, or the synagogue that day. (Or to elementary school, middle school, high school, or college that day. Or to the gym. Or to the news office. Or to court.)

And yet, here we are.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether we pass away from too many six packs and chocolate chip cookies or the unlucky aim of a madman with gun. We’re here one day and not the next. (That is, of course, if we’re fortunate enough to have avoided the destiny of lingering and drawing out our passage to our next assignment.)

My point here is simply to observe that I have a lot of stuff in my home that I’ve been unintentionally collecting. Books I’ve been saving to read “when I have time.” Presents I know I will give “when I have time” to figure out how to explain the delay in giving them.

I barely “have time” to write a post each night. I’ve certainly not been “making time” to write anything beyond these posts. (Let me be clear though: I’m sincerely delighted that I’ve managed to write as many posts as I have so far.)

Yet all of a sudden, I’m finding myself face to face with TIME.

Do We Treasure It? Or Squander It?

How I use it; how I squander it. How I blithely seem to skip along each day, whistling in the face of the absolute guarantee that one of these days I won’t be here any more. And all the books and gifts and well-intentioned thoughts of how I intend to spend my time will be left hanging.

And while this fact of life (the inevitability of death) has always been with us – throughout time and space as we know it – I have this really itchy feeling at the edge of my consciousness that we’ve never squandered quite so much “time” as we are right now. As I am. (I can only speak for myself. I hope you’ll forgive me for that sweeping generalization.)

I want to read at least some of those books. (Not all of them. I must must must have a stash set aside in case our infrastructure is hacked and we are forced to live for a time – perhaps a very long time – without electricity.) (Funny, isn’t it? My idea of being a “prepper” is not to stockpile water or guns or food. It’s books, baby. Books.)

And I want to give away those gifts I’ve set aside from my travels. My intentions were loving and generous at the time I bought them. So I’m not going to care anymore if I look like a whack job for not having given them away as soon as I returned to the states.

I yearn to savor the experience of living. I want to immerse myself in the joy and struggle of creating and healing, teaching and reading, giving and reaching.

I want to savor my time. However much or little of it I have left.

(T-986)