Time. I think we would all agree that of all the gifts we possess as human beings, our body, our mind, our social interactions, our friends, etcetera, the most precious thing that we possess as human beings is time. My time, of course, on this Earth, my consciousness as I see it here. Now for sure many people believe in a transcendence, in an afterlife and that’s a good thing. I do too.
I believe in God. This concept of God gives me a lot of personal blessing, personal relief. But still, I exist in time. Therefore, the other day, when I was walking along the street and I passed by the train station, and I saw numerous people just laying there doing absolutely nothing on cardboard mats, some begging, but most just sleeping, semi nude, broken people. I was deeply troubled, and I asked myself, why is it that I value time so much from a very early age?
From the time I was very young, I remarked on time as most of us do, I’m sure. And yet there are other individuals that seemingly don’t care about time at all. I went to a presentation the other day of high school students giving their ideas on certain things. One on the economy, another one on growth in the future, the stock market. Gosh.
There was someone talking about homosexual artists. All very interesting. And I wondered how many of those young people really truly understand that this very specific period of time for them is coming to an end, because we’re always forward looking, aren’t we? I’m going to high school. I’m going to try and do a good job.
I’m gonna graduate. Most young people now, I’m going to go to a university. Gonna finish four or six years. Gonna get my master’s degree. Then I’m going to get the ill fated job, whatever that means.
And I speak to many young people. They’ll find some form of job, I’m sure, make some money, meet mister and missus right, and everyone is programmed. We gotta save money because we have to buy material things. I must buy, let’s say, a house or a car, have maybe some children will come along. And then, eventually, I’ll build up this nest egg, whatever it is, and I will retire.
And then I’ll patiently wait to die, and that will be the net sum of my time. Right? Why does this happen? Because I really haven’t appreciated, I feel, in many cases that there is no one like me. There never has been and there never will be.
But once I’m gone, that’s the end of my time here. Why does this happen? Well, gosh, I think to myself, it could be perhaps a lack of awareness. A lot of people don’t really realize that they’re conscious, that they’re alive. And I think a lot of people are very, very smart, but they don’t get it.
It could be that you’re absolutely shocked. Let’s say you take a job as a clerk in the bureaucracy. Fairly decent money, of course. And one day becomes two days becomes one year, two years, suddenly twenty years. There was a BBC study, in fact, that suggested that we peak after twenty years of working in some bureaucratic institution.
At this point, we might be, let’s say, 45 years old. We joined the bureaucracy when we’re 25, twenty years we’re 45, and that’s the end of our intellectual growth, our search, our imaginative search for something bigger than me. And in another twenty years, I retire. Not much there, I would think. So we have an existential kind of numbness, I guess you could say.
Right? And then we’re all, of course, taught we must work. We must work increasingly, you know, we also don’t really ask these questions about why am I here? How did I come to exist? So this whole aspect of religion, we have kind of a time of spiritual apathy in a sense.
Right? We’re kind of blinded to our consciousness, our spirituality. And it’s hard, of course, to make money. Very hard to make money. So sometimes we’re just burnt out.
Just burnt out, and then we become fatal. Well, I guess I was not designed my being is not designed to be rich. Poor me. Victim mindset. Right?
Just poor me. So and it goes on. Right? It goes on. Like and you ask yourself, why is this happening?
Why? Well, we deny things. I’m never gonna die. I mean, when I’m alive, Damien Hirst, that sculpture with the shark, the impossibility of death in the mind of the living. And isn’t it so true?
When I am alive, I can never think of these things, can’t I? So how am I gonna get my time back, if you will? I’m really gonna appreciate my time. Well, firstly, I think I have to realize that I’m special. And I do not mean this in a vain sense at all, but I’m special in the sense that I am one of a little bit more than 8,000,000,000 human beings.
I walk at the moment three or four times a week in the mountains, and we’re training to go to the El Camino walk this summer, my walking partner David and I. And what’s in the mountains are tremendous amount of snails on the roadway. Tremendous amount. They come out after the water, and the snail is very, very slow as they proceed from one side of the road to the other. And the snails and the bugs and the bees and the birds, Twittering perhaps in the early morning, they don’t perceive time in the same way we do.
Right? They’re given a gift of life, but they are not probably self conscious, perhaps. Some creatures are, but very few creatures have any knowledge of time in that sense. So we must realize that we have this gift of time. And then because each of us are so unique, we must begin to document that time.
We must write down our thoughts, create the poetry, write the music, smile to our friends, do all those things to document my presence on this earth. Absolutely. Right? Because inevitably, if I’m not here, I can no longer contribute anything, can I? It’s impossible.
So then if I reflect on those things, then I will remove myself from the victim mindset, the poor me. And I will be able to say each and every day is a gift as long as I’m here, and each and every day, I’m going to contribute something to the civilization. And then I’m going to realize that time, my time, is precious. And the collective unconscious, I guess you could say according to doctor Carl Jung, the collective unconscious grows because of my contribution, doesn’t it? So please reflect on your time.
It’s a precious thing. Don’t be a dullard and just put in your time to make some money that potentially you won’t enjoy because you’ll be so exhausted by the end of the day or the end of your life. You won’t be able to spend it and potentially you give it to people who will never perceive that money had such value, and it’ll all go away over time. And this is the truth throughout history. This is nothing unique at all.
Unless I stop for a moment and value time, it’s gone. It has no value because time itself really doesn’t exist, does it? The only consciousness I have of time is my time, And if I don’t, like doctor Csikszentmihalyi, value the flow at times, time goes. It’s just gone. So think of time, your time, my time, make it precious.
And you know what they say. You know what they say. Critical thinking is everything, especially if you value time. And critical thinking is great. Truly great. You take care. God bless. Bye bye.