Good morning everybody. And a good morning it is too, even though it’s a dull looking gray world outside my window in this late December, drizzling, Friday morning rain.
I’m thinking of time as I rattle off this bit of scribble. And time, it appears, becomes more of a serious and pressing issue to us old-timers as we rack up our many decades.
We notice our gray hair and wrinkles in the mirror’s reflection. We see the age in our eyes and the long of our teeth when we smile. We choose to label this condition as senior, vintage, survivor, and all the other complementary terms for old goats.
I must admit, I do look a bit like an old goat with these scraggly gray whiskers of mine. I think I’ll chop it off and refresh my physical image some for the new year.
And speaking of which, this current year is just now rapidly fading away. These are the final hours on the last day of 2021. Soon it will be off and gone into the hidden away, yellowing pages of our history.
However, it’s been a dramatic, exciting, up and down, eventful year. But now it’s done, or very shortly will be. We’ve got to let it go, they all say, and move along to new horizons.
But it somehow does not seem right for it to end so soon and so abruptly. Wouldn’t it be better if we could add a few more weeks a month or two? 2021 should really stay a little longer.
If our government has the power to mandate time change twice a year for everybody, can’t it extend this year for maybe another month?
I know you’re probably saying “Dream on Dan.” But at least I can still dream. I dream of the pleasant days, months and years I’ve so enjoyed in this incredible lifetime of mine. And I want them to last and to continue slowly.
But I don’t think it’s the clock, calendar or our government that regulates and controls time as much as the motion and changes in our universe.
Seasons, tides, phases of the moon, births and deaths; all seen as just passing milestones in the constant current or eternal stream of time.
Time is like a burning candle. You can not make it unburn and reverse direction.
Time is also a bit like a wild horse. It can be your friend or foe. It can throw you, stomp on you and really hurt you if you do not handle it kindly. But you can tame, work with, harmonize and enjoy it.
There are many other comparisons such as: it’s a long and winding road, it’s an ever flowing river, a continuous railroad track, and a long way home.
So here now comes our age old tradition where once every year people gather in large crowds, often in the bitter cold, to ring out the old and to welcome in the new year.
Where will you be at the stroke of midnight, dear reader?
Fireworks, celebration, entertainment and good cheer; it’s a joyful occasion. Still, a majority of our population will sleep through and past the special midnight hour separating both masses of time.
They will wake up the next morning to a new time, space and calendar year. But it may well seem like the same old everyday jazz to them.
So time is, as they say, what you make of it. And conversely, time may also be what it makes of you. That could be old, gray, bitter, disheartened and beaten. But isn’t that like being thrown from the horse and giving up?
Why not jump up, get back in the saddle while showing the world whose boss?
Time, for me, is a measurement of our existence in space and physical form in the exclusive here and now seperation between past and future. It’s the burning flame of now to be lived, enjoyed, shared and savored.
And if that’s not enough, here is one more analogy. Sometimes I picture present time as a giant wave in an ocean of infinity.
And as travelers through this dimension of time, our goal should be to ride this incredible wave like a skilful surfer. And, of course, we never want to wipe out.
Hey, let’s go. Surf’s up dude. We have choppy, gnarly, dangerous waters these days.
But that just makes it all that much more fun and enjoyable to catch a really good wave, crest it, stay on top and ride!
