Day 358 of the Calendar Year

An old Celtic Saying goes: “When God made time, he made enough of it.” How could this be? How could there ever be enough time? Most of us are fond of declaring that we have “no time” or that we are “too busy.” The song “Time in a Bottle” by Jim Croce has the following lyrics:

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them.

We are always running short of time, running out of time, not having enough time, having to makeup time, having to catch up, running late, etc., etc. “No Time, No Time” has become the mantra of the 21st century. How could God have made enough time? We never ever have enough. What could the Celts have been thinking?

Well, what if the Celts were right? What if there is enough time? What if all of our running around and frantic efforts to save time are like trying to stop the wind or push the tide back into the ocean? Imagine, someone with a bucket on the beach trying to shovel all of the water back into the ocean before it can creep up on the beach. What if we are doing the same thing with time? What if all of our efforts to save time simply are wasting our lives? What if we lived one day at a time and one moment at a time each day? What if we could ignore time and believe that “God made enough of it.”

Repeat the following thought to yourself: “Today, tomorrow and next week, there will be enough time. I will always have enough time." You will have no more time shortages. No more running out of time. There will always be enough time to do what you need to do. If you truly believed this, what difference would it make in your life? What would you do different today if you knew you would always have enough time? How would your life change if you always had enough time?

Day 357 of the Calendar Year

Changing times - “the times they are a changin.” Words made famous by Bob Dylan in his 1964 song and album. The times have been “a changing” ever since the first people discovered fire. The Romans conquered the known world. Then the barbarians overran the Roman Empire after which the dark ages came. This was followed by the reformation which was followed by the industrial revolution. Then the global information and computer age arrived. Times change so fast today, we buy one cell phone and it is obsolete when we get it home. Computers chips replace each other so rapidly; we cannot keep track of the numbers. Movies come and go in days and the top 40 songs last about 6 weeks.

Styles, fame, fortune, disasters and triumphs will last until you throw out today’s paper or as more likely, until you stop hearing about them on the web. When were times not changing? Are they really changing more rapidly today or is it just our myopic view of history? How could times not change? Isn’t that the very nature of time? It is a measurement of change. However, what if we did not measure it? What if we did not keep track of minutes, hours, days and years? Could anything change if we did not count the change? The obvious answer is yes. Seasons change, weather changes, we change. However, these changes are more constant. We cannot say the seasons change faster then they did 3000 years ago. Nor do we age any faster. If anything, our extra longevity should help to slow the world down for us. We have twice as long to live as they did during the Roman Empire.

Then why do we think things are changing so fast? Why does it feel like we can hardly keep up? Is it the pace of change or the number of events we now seem to have to deal with? Has the speed of change really increased? Perhaps we should have a measure for the speed of change. We measure speed of movement, why not a measure for the number of changes we are faced with daily? Instead of miles per hour, we could call it ACPD (Average Changes per Day). The daily news would report the number of changes per day along with the weather. “Today there was 4,072 changes in St. Paul. However, this was dwarfed by the changes in Tokyo which topped 1 million today.” We could keep an Index of Change like the stock market indexes. We could watch each week to see if the index was going up or down.

Of course, there would be some problems with measuring change. For instance, should each time a newborn baby say their first word be counted as a change? Is each new cell phone a change or simply a revision? Is the New Tide really new? What about changes in your life? Has your life changed very much? What were the most significant changes you have experienced? Do you think your life is going faster or slower? Why, what has changed for you? Do you wish things would slow down or speed up?

Day 356 of the Calendar Year

Racing against time or racing the clock. Is there any difference? Time is short, you are running late and you just found out about a deadline to meet: A play to catch, a movie to watch, a party to go to, or some other event and you have to move fast to make it. Time is critical; you can not waste a second. You must do only what is called for and in the most efficient order possible. Can you do it? You don’t know but you will sure try. You are racing against the clock. Did you ever watch that TV show, where they were given a grocery cart and they had one minute to fill it with as much stuff as they could? I think it was called “Beat the Clock.” The contestants raced like crazy to try and put as much of the “high” value items as they could in the shopping cart. Forget the pickles, get the steaks in!

How often do we run like there is no tomorrow only to find it did not make a bit of difference? The play was cancelled. The party was called off. You were the only one there. They changed the date and did not tell you. Something came up at the last minute. Who cares about your time? There was really no race. You were racing yourself. You were the only contestant in the event. Did you think you were so important that your presence would be missed? Was the race really important?

Each day, you probably spend some of your time racing against the clock. When you are racing against the clock, are you spending your precious time on the “high” value things of life? Are you going for the steaks? Or are you simply running like a rat in a wheel and going nowhere fast. Where did you get to? What prize did you win? When was the last time you raced the clock? Did you beat the clock or did the clock beat you? How much of life do you spend racing time? Is it worth the prize?

Day 355 of the Calendar Year

Borrowed time - We have all heard the expression “you are living on borrowed time.” Of course, this means to go on living after the time you should have died. The phrase goes back to the seventeenth century (see http://www.phrases.org.uk). My sister was given several weeks to live after being diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. She went on to live five more years and even survived one round of hospice care to live a few more years after that. She just did not want to die. She lived many happy if not healthy years on borrowed time. I wondered who she paid this time back to and who she actually borrowed it from.

I think if you live life like there will be no tomorrows you are living on borrowed time. We all know people who disproportionately flaunt the risks of life. People who drink and drive are living on borrowed time. People who ride motorcycles without wearing a helmet are living on borrowed time. People who do not exercise or watch their weight are living on borrowed time. People who smoke are living on borrowed time. Each day you cheat death, is a day you owe to someone.

Are you one of the people living on borrowed time? What is the cost you pay for living on borrowed time? Who do you borrow this time from? Who do you pay it back to? When do you think they will come to collect? I think you borrow it from those who love and care for you.

Day 354 of the Calendar Year

The oldest person in the world! This is a title that takes years to earn and once you earn it, you probably will not hold it very long. Last week, the oldest person in the world was 114-year-old Yone Minagawa from Japan. Sadly, by the time this blog is posted, there will probably be another title holder. The chance to earn the “oldest living person” in the world designation is slim for most of us. However, recent studies report that the odds of living past 100 are growing. The US Department of Census projects that there could be over four million Americans reaching age 100 or more by 2050. Super Centenarians are those people who live to over 110 years of age. A study by Robin and Vaupel (2001) shows that in the world as a whole, the number of validated super-centenarians for whom adequate documentation is available is increasing. Other evidence also points to a world-wide increase in lifespan, thus making the age of 100 increasingly more likely for many of us.

Have you ever thought of what it would be like to live to 100 or more? You would have set foot in two centuries during one lifetime. You would have lived in five generations and possibly be a great great great or greater grandparent. If you had been born in the year 1900 and had lived past the year 2000, you would have lived through the horse and buggy era and now be living in the age of rockets and space travel. You would have lived in a time when there were no TV’s, cell phones, radios, computers or Internet and now be living in a time when all of these are common. What if you were born in 2000 and live to be 100? You would make it to the 22nd century. If we accept that we will make as much or more progress in the next 100 years as we have in the last, what changes do you think you would see? It is hard to imagine the same degrees of changes taking place between 2000 and 2100 as between 1900 and 2000 and yet it is inevitable. Furthermore, the changes will probably dwarf those of the past century. What do you have to do to live to 100? Studies seem to point to the following common factors among centenarians:

• Continuing to play a role in society
• Keeping in good physical shape
• Taking preventive measures against serious disease
• Looking on the bright side of life
• Being intellectually stimulated
• Believing that happiness can be achieved
• Having financial security
• Having a good life expectation
• Maintaining satisfactory social relationships

(Quality of life and longevity: a study of centenarians, Mariosa Dello Buono, Ornella Urciuou, Diego De Leo in Age and Ageing 1998; 27: 207-216)

Well, looking at this list, do you have what it takes? Will you live to 100 years of age? Do you think you might even obtain the oldest person in the world title? What would have to change in your life for you to be in the running? Which of the above factors do you need to work on? Would you like to live to 100 if you could be healthy and happy to that age?

Day 353 of the Calendar Year

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” This is the opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. He was referring to the time of the French Revolution. It is perhaps the most famous line in all of literature. Why? Not because we relate to the French Revolution, but because we can all relate to the sentiment. How many days in your life have you felt it was the best of times, but also the worst? We would probably all be rich if we had a dollar for each day or time we felt this way. Life brings us many ups and downs. Life is seldom all joy and happiness. In one day, in one hour, many of us can go from high to low. A brief moment can bring us news that will make us supremely happy or thoroughly sad. Death and destruction come at inopportune times. We can not plan them or control them. Happiness can be equally whimsical. One minute we can feel elated over some momentary triumph and the next minute we are dejected because it was not greater.

We have all had many days that were the best of times and the worst of times. Each day of our lives that we awake healthy can start out to be the best of times. By the end of some days, it has become the worst of times. We may end the day feeling totally used up and wondering if there is not more to life. The pressures and tribulations of the day have beaten our spirits down. By bedtime, we are ready for the oblivion of sleep. Happy only for a good nights rest that will help restore our mind and body, but mostly our willpower to face the next day. We hope to awake refreshed and ready to believe again that today will be the best of times and not the worst of times.

Can you get up today and face live with optimism and not defeat? Do you get up each day and look forward to the challenges that the day will bring? Have you been able to grow older but remain optimistic about life? Do you fully expect that there will be much pain but also great happiness in your life? Is today the best of times or the worst of times for you?

Day 352 of the Calendar Year

Poems on time or about time have probably been written since recorded history. If you enjoy poetry, the website: http://www.poemhunter.com has many good poems on a wide array of subjects including time. Poetry is a way of saying things very concisely but elegantly. Poetry is somewhat like calligraphy in its flowing beauty. Poets use fewer words than authors and express thoughts very succinctly but with great depth and emotion. The subject of time lends itself to poetry very well since time affects us in so many ways and concerns the past, present and future. Poetry has an inherent sense of rhythm which is a key element of time. There is hardly a subject that deals with so much of life as time and poets love subjects that are full of life and death.

I have used several poems in this book. I am not a good poet myself and have only written a few in my life. One I wrote, I called:


Mother and Father

Mother and father were born,
A long time ago.

Mother and father got married,
A long time ago.

Mother and father nursed me and played with me,
A long time ago.

Mother and father scolded me and spanked me,
A long time ago.

Mother and father stayed up all night and worried about me,
A long time ago.

Mother and father came to visit me,
A long time ago.

Mother and father died,
A long time ago.

Can you write a poem on time? Of course you can. Have you ever tried? Why not? Perhaps you and I will never be rich or famous poets, but there is a feeling of release that comes from writing poetry. Every one of us has a poem, a story and a song inside us just waiting to come out. Today is your day to be a poet. Sit down and write a short stanza or sonnet or haiku or even an entire poem. Write about life, death, family, friends, birth, weddings, nature, politics or whatever is on your mind.

Think about all of the poetry that you read on Hallmark cards. You can write as good as some of this poetry and they get paid for it. Will you do this poem for me? If you write it on Time, I would love to see it. Send it to my email address at persico.john@comcast.net. How does it feel to be a poet or poetess?

Day 351 of the Calendar Year

Are you familiar with the phrase “real time?” If I say it is happening in real time, what does that mean to you? Does that mean it’s not happening in “fake” time? If there is real time, then there must be fake time. However, no one ever uses the phrase “fake time.” Well, what is real time? According to most definitions, real time is happening now, not later, yesterday or tomorrow. It is happening in the present.

The term real time derives from its use in early simulation. While current usage implies that a computation that is 'fast enough' is real time, originally it referred to a simulation that proceeded at a rate that matched that of the real process it was simulating. Analog computers, especially, were often capable of simulating much faster than real time, a situation that could be just as dangerous as a slow simulation if it were not also recognized and accounted for. (Wikipedia.com)

So why don’t we just call it present time? The catch is that some things that can happen in real time can also happen at some other time pace. For now, let’s call the other time “fake” time. In fake time, something that will happen in twenty-four hours in real time can be compressed to 1 hour or even 1 minute in fake time. Game simulations often take place over years but play out on computers in minutes or hours.

Now what if we applied both these terms to “real” life? We shall speak of real time and fake time. Real time would mean that I was working, thinking, playing at a pace that matched that of the real world. Fake time would mean I was daydreaming, goofing off, being unproductive, zoning out, watching TV, on drugs or otherwise getting out of the present reality. Many people spend a great deal of their lives in fake time and avoiding real time. In real time, I must face the real world. In fake time, I only have to deal with a pretend world. In fake time, I travel to Hollywood with the stars. I participate in “reality shows.” I cheer for the Survivors and I live vicariously with the next Hollywood Idol. I can pretend I am Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Angelina Jolie, or Sarah Jessica Parker. In fake time, I can even make my very own video and post it on YouTube or MySpace and hope that someday I will be viewed and worshipped by the multitudes. To paraphrase Andy Warhol, “In fake time, everyone can have their 15 minutes of fame and glory.” However, Andy was pre-computers. He did not foresee that in today’s computer world, everyone can have hours and hours of fake time. Fake time is only limited by the amount of time you want to put into escaping real time. You can spend hours or days in fake time and only come out to eat and sleep.

What do you do with your real time? How much real time do you use in a day? How much of your day do you spend in fake time? Which time do you enjoy more? Why? Do you think you need a better balance in your life? Should you have more real time or fake time? What difference do you think it would make?

Day 350 of the Calendar Year

Closing Time - “Could you please tell me what your closing time is?” “It is closing time, would everyone please move to the front of the store.” “Oh my God, it’s almost closing time and I have not met anyone to go home with.” “Well, its closing time soon and I will be able to quit work.” Who is not familiar with the idea of closing time? Before 24/7, we had 7/11 stores. We thought that they were really something because they opened at 7 AM and closed at 11 PM. When once most businesses closed on Sundays and Holidays, today even Christmas and New Years are not observed by many stores. It’s common to find businesses, gas stations and shops that stay open all day, all night, every day. Of course, we still have zones and restrictions concerning closing times for some establishments and times beyond which it is illegal to sell certain products. In some states, you can sell alcohol on Sunday and in others you may not. The closing times for bars vary from state to state as does their opening times. It is interesting that we have not gone 24/7 for everything.

Behind this trend towards more liberal opening and closing times is a combination of social, legal and technological forces. Socially we are becoming more diverse and we show less inclination to honor holidays associated with any one religion. Technologically, we have the means to schedule and staff more hours than ever before. Computers and the Internet have opened up many retail opportunities for the enterprising entrepreneur who does recognize time barriers. Legally, politicians have seen no compelling reasons to block people from shopping or working whenever they want to. In a consumer driven economy, more shopping and more spending creates a stronger economy and more profits. Today we have telecommuting as well as teleshopping. If I decide to work at home, why should my starting and closing time be dictated by traditional rules of work? I can start later and “close shop” at 3 AM in the morning or whenever I stop being productive.

Some day, the concept of closing time may be an anachronism. It will be a relic of past times when people were bound to regular time clocks and cars. In the future, there may never be any closing times. Would you rather a 9 to 5 world or a 24/7 world? Why? What benefits do you get from each? Could we combine the best of both? Are there some days or times when everything should be closed? Should we have a day of rest from capitalism and consumerism?

Day 349 of the Calendar Year

There are many metaphors that involve time: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2-12-22) “God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.” (Genesis 1-2). A metaphor gives us an alternative picture of reality. Some metaphors can be taken quite literally, others are more symbolic. Since we cannot feel, taste, see or touch time, most time metaphors have to be symbolic. However, we can measure time, and that fact makes some symbolic interpretations of time very problematic. Could Jesus Christ really have destroyed the temple and rebuilt it again in three days? Did God really create the world in only seven days?

Here is a good explanation of the relationship between symbols and metaphors from the website of Dr. Rick Singleton, a professor at Southern Virginia University:

"One of the most recognizable objects from J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is the One Ring. It is the object that controls the other ring wielders, yet it is also the only one that has that power and will of its own. The One Ring symbolizes power, dominance, corruption, and evil. When we take the phrase “One ring to rule them all,” it then becomes a metaphor. Because the One ring is the subject and the object of the phrase, but it’s A is B relationship is simple to understand once we know the idea behind the ring and the phrase behind the metaphor." http://www.hatrack.com/svu/tolkien_lewis/OSC%20Paper.html

It would be impossible to speak about time without speaking in symbols and metaphors. Each reflection in my blogs represents an abstraction that hopefully many of you reading these thoughts can relate to. I have tried to make these blogs interesting and useful by putting these abstractions on time into a different light or by creating new metaphors for some of them. The power of symbols and metaphors is in helping us to see and understand the world and ourselves in a different light. However, as we become accustomed to symbols and metaphors, they lose this power because we take them for granted. We allow them to become worthless because we no longer think about them.

For instance, when you see the Statue of Liberty, do you think about all the immigrants that came over and about the fighting that went on to free us from the British? When it is the Fourth of July, do you see Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress debating the text of the Declaration of Independence? Many metaphors become clichés such as: “sharp as a knife”, “he was a lame duck” or they were “like two ships passing in the night.” Repeated use brings dullness to the edge of metaphors. We say them, think we understand their meaning and quickly move on. In doing so, we ignore the deeper implications of each. We miss the more profound thoughts that are hidden beneath our surface understanding. For instance, why were they like ships passing in the night? What happened to them that they lost or missed their chance for a relationship? When did they first start to pass each other? What could they have done differently to not miss each other in the dark night?

My hope is that these many metaphors, symbols and concepts about time will help you to think about the world and your life differently. To see a different picture of those things that you may take for granted about time. Did God really make the world in seven days? Does it matter? What do you think?

Day 348 of the Calendar Year

Is it your time to go or the pilots time to go? I had an aunt who refused to fly anywhere no matter the circumstances or situation. I was young and naïve and tried reasoning with her. I told her about the airline safety facts and how airlines per mile traveled were much safer than automobiles. None of my rational persuasion had any influence. Finally, I resorted to an irrational or emotional argument. I said “well, if it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go.” Without batting an eyelash, she replied “yeah, but what if it’s the pilots time to go.” Stumped by this counter-intuitive logic, I gave up. Was this a battle between fatalism and realism or between rationalism and irrationalism? Was my aunt the fatalist or was she the realist? Was she rationale or irrational? Can you prevent your death by playing it safe or is your death already in the cards?

In the story “Appointment in Samarra”, a sheik finds out that Death is looking for him in the marketplace. He grabs a horse and rides quickly away to another town called Samarra, only to meet Death there. Somewhat surprised, the sheik asks Death what he is doing there and receives the reply that “I had an appointment to meet you here today.”

Can we escape fate or are our fates already decided? Would it make a difference in how you lived your life if you knew the answer to this question? Would you take more chances or less? Would you ride a motorcycle, skydive, scuba dive or climb mountains? Do you act like you could die tomorrow or do you act like you will live forever? How many risks do you take in your life? Do you think you are a fatalist or a realist? Are you trying to escape your “appointment in Samarra”? Or are you ignoring your appointment?

Day 347 of the Calendar Year

Dinner time - “The word "dinner" comes from the French word dîner, the "chief repast of the day", (Wikipedia). It is a time for family and bonding in some homes. In others, it is simply a time of eating. Dinner time in many cultures is associated with ceremony and a degree of formality. There once was a time in the U.S when people dressed up to come to dinner on a regular basis. Traditionally, the head of the household said a blessing and then dinner was served. Increasingly, in our strapped and harried culture, dinner time has become a time simply to grab a quick microwave meal and catch the latest sports event on TV. The time for socializing and sharing the day’s experiences has been traded for time in front of the TV watching the news. Mom’s homemade cooking has been traded for Mrs. Field cookies and Papa John’s Pizza. Dinner is simply a time to stock up on high fat, high calorie pre-processed foods. Witness the current obesity in American society.

You can yearn for the past, but the past is not always as we remember it. Dinner time in some historic periods has been a time of fasting and even deprivation. There simply was not enough food to go around and many would go hungry. A blessing would have been said to simply help find food and to survive until food could be found. Today there are still places in the world where people do not have enough to eat. The following facts are from the site: “Bread for the World” ( http://www.bread.org )

• 854 million people across the world are hungry, up from 852 million a year
ago.
• Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child
every five seconds.

In essence, hunger is the most extreme form of poverty, where individuals or families cannot afford to meet their most basic need for food. The figures above come from studies done by Global organizations working to reduce poverty. Perhaps in twenty years or so we will have made a larger dent in these figures. Perhaps we will not, if the world has to keep struggling with war and terrorism, if we do not see the urgency or we do not make it a global priority to help reduce poverty. The value of sitting together at a well stocked dinner table gets trumped by the value of security and freedom from oppression. Have you ever wondered why we cannot have both? How do we bring this choice upon ourselves in the first place? Are war and poverty inevitable? Have we accepted that they are beyond our control? Is it simply our nature as human beings to have to suffer? Would we really want a world that was like the Garden of Eden? Or would we soon become bored and start throwing apples at each other?

Have you ever sat down at dinner and not had enough to eat? Have you ever passed the plate so someone else could eat and you could not? Have you ever passed the plate to help others in the world to eat? Is dinner time a time of joy for you or a time of strife? What would help to make it more joyful? Would more food help? Would more socializing and talking to each other help? Would doing more to help those who have no food help?

Day 346 of the Calendar Year

Do you measure journey time or measure destination time? I have a patch on one of my jeans which says “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” How often in life do we get so wound up with what we are going to do, or where we want to go that we forget the joy in the journey. Our destination, our goals become so overpowering that we forget the process, we forget to live each day. We live in the future and never enjoy the minutes which are happening one at a time. We become so consumed with our purpose or goals that we ignore the flowers and birds that surround us. We forget to smell the roses. The famous atheist and socialist Emma Goldman said “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution.” We take ourselves and our lives too serious. How often have you known someone who upon experiencing their first heart attack and surviving it suddenly decided to reprioritize what was important in their life? This wakeup call for mortality helped them to realize that they were missing out on what life is meant to be. Why take a trip if you cannot enjoy the journey?

Every so often when I was growing up, my father would take us on a trip. It was usually to visit my grandparents in Alabama. I hated those trips. My father would drive like a maniac, watching the clock every minute to see how he could cut minutes or seconds off the trip. He was obsessed with how fast he could get there. Sometimes we would sleep in the car through the night. We would often pass restrooms because he would not waste time stopping. When he finally got around to it, we would pee at the side of the road. There was no stopping for road side rests. No stopping for any sights or marvels that the world might put up for display. My father’s sole and unremitting quest was to see how fast he could get us from NY to Alabama.

These trips were hated by me, my mother and my siblings. They were never fun nor do I remember one minute of pleasure on any of these trips. It was not until I was 13 that I had a good trip down south. My mother decided to take a train with my two sisters and leave early and my father and I were going to go with my Uncle Paul and his father (Pop Hofer). My uncle was not going to let my father spoil a perfectly good trip by ignoring the sites along the way. For the first time in any of these trips, we stopped. We stopped in Washington D.C. to see the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. We stopped at Luray Caverns and visited the underground caves. We stopped at Ruby Falls to see the underground waterfall. We stopped at Lookout Mountain and rode the train up and down. We stopped to eat along the way. We stopped at a motel and stayed the night. I will never forget this trip or my uncle for helping me to find a life along the way. I learned then that the journey can be as important as the destination.

What if you get there and you hate it? What if you have not learned to enjoy life along the way? What if you never get there? What about the people who had a first heat attack and it was their last? Do you stop to smell the roses? Do you stop to pick raspberries? Is your life so busy that you don’t enjoy the journey? Do you have to have a “heart attack” to teach you to enjoy the journey?

Day 345 of the Calendar Year

Every now and then:

“Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound
of my tears,
Turn around,
Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the
years have gone by.” (Total Eclipse of the Heart, Bonnie Tyler)

I love the words in this song. They help me to reflect on those things in my life which seem to happen “every now and then.” I have decided to make a list of my most important ones. My list is as follows:

• Every now and then, I get wistful, thinking of the people I once loved.
• Every now and then, I think of the friends and relatives long gone.
• Every now and then, I feel sad about the things I cannot undo.
• Every now and then, I go back to memories and places I will never see again.
• Every now and then, every now and then, every now and then, I just get
stuck.

We all have our every “now and then.” There is a certain melancholy to my list. Perhaps your list would be more joyful or fun. What are the things that pop up for you “every now and then?” Can you make a list? Why do you think these things keep popping up? Do they represent regrets or unfinished business? Do you think they would come up less often if you could somehow put them to rest? What stops you?

Day 344 of the Calendar Year

What would Aristotle, Plato and Socrates say about time to Confucius and Lao Tzu? What if the greatest philosophers of the Western world met the greatest philosophers of the Eastern world? What would they say to each other about time? Confucius emphasized doing the proper thing at the proper time. Lao Tzu believed that time was created in our minds and to say “I don’t have time” was to really say “I don’t want to.” Socrates would have asked “why do you think time is in your minds? Could time not be in our hearts?” Aristotle would have pointed out that the planets, stars, and earth all do their own thing independent of what humans believe or want. Aristotle defined time as a kind of ‘number of change’ with respect to the before and after (Ursula Coope, “Time for Aristotle,” 2005, Oxford online Monographs). By this time, Plato, totally exasperated would note that “no human thing is of serious importance.” “Thus, why waste time quibbling here over what time is or is not, let us go find a tavern and have a drink together.” And so the philosophers all went off in search of a tavern. Legend has it they spent the rest of the day drinking and making fools of themselves with the young women in the bar who could not understand what they were talking about. Well, such is the folly of most men when their minds meet their basic instincts and needs.

My question for you and all philosophers is: “does time rule your life or does instinct and nature rule your life?” Do you live according to the clock and logic or do you live according to your feelings and instincts? What most guides your choice of activities and times? Are you a thinking person or a feeling person? What if you could switch? How would your life be different?

Day 343 of the Calendar Year

Is God time? God is perfection. God is omnipotent. God is omniscient. God could build the universe in seven days. Did God create time or is God Time? What if God was like a giant pacemaker. All the beatings of each heart, all the changes of nature, all the changes in humanity governed by a God with infinite pacemaker capabilities. Everything that is going to happen is already known. Each act in the universe already scripted in God’s timepiece. All events are pre-determined. Some people would call this determinism and say it has no place in the freewill that God gave humans. Other philosophers would disagree and say that determinism and free-will can coexist. (See Bea Best: “A Case for Freewill and Determinism,” http://www.benbest.com/philo/freewill.html)

If God was time, it would explain many things that we never seem to understand. Accidents and random events that do not make sense in the short term might make more sense when understood on a cosmic level. Perhaps we could understand why justice seems to occur very slowly but nevertheless inevitably. God does not forget, there is just a time and place for everything. If we could look at God’s schedule we would be able to foretell all that is to come and perhaps comprehend why things unfold as they do. If God was time, we would not have to worry about the lateness or earliness of anything, nor would we worry that the world was going in the wrong direction or the wrong political parties were in control. According to God, things would happen for the best in the long-term.

We puny humans cannot understand time on a cosmic infinite scale. We are constantly left wondering as to the complexity and strangeness of the universe. Even our own lives and actions constantly surprise and befuddle us. Why do we act like we do, why do others act like they do? Most of the universe is like a giant jigsaw puzzle that we just can not figure out. All of our theories and hypotheses and scientific findings cannot account for this infinite puzzle that seems to strangely unfold before our eyes. It is like a play with most of the action happening unseen off stage. We never know what will happen next or why it will happen. We are just content to say “its time to go.” Do you think God is time? Can you understand what you are about or why you were put on this earth? Do you think you serve a larger cause or are you just a random event?

Day 342 of the Calendar Year

What is time? Do we even know what time is? Is it the passing of the seasons, the snow falling, our bodies aging or the leaves turning? Is it the sun rising and the moon going through phases? Is it the lines that grow in my face as the days, weeks and months pass into years? Is it my cell phone, my digital PDA or my analog wristwatch becoming obsolete? Is it my alarm clock, the radio, the TV or the five o’clock news telling me the time of day? Is time something you feel or sense? Do you even believe in something called time? Can you feel it or touch it or is it just in your mind? How do you know what time really is or do you need to care? Do you want to know what time it is when you are on vacation or during the weekends? Do you wear a watch for style or function? Do you take life one day at a time or do you plan your life months in advance?

What if time stopped? What if the word time did not exist and you had never heard of the idea of time? What would a life without time and all the ways we measure it be like? What if we had no schedules and no rules for “being on time?” What if there were no birthdays, anniversaries, holidays or special days to remember time? What if we had no place to go where we had to be on time? What if there were no planes, ships or buses that left “on time?”

Can you conceive of a world without time? What if our clocks all stopped for just one day? What time would you get up today if there was “no time?” How would you live today if there was no place to be on time? Would your life be different if you could forget the concept of time or if time did not exist? What if you could just do things over and over again until you got them right? Does the concept of time help you to live a better life?

Day 341 of the Calendar Year

Are my blogs on time timeless? As I have worked on the reflections and ideas in these blogs, I have wondered about how timeless or not timeless they will be. Will they speak to other cultures if translated into their language? Will they be readable 25 or 250 years from now? Will the ideas, questions, comments and theories still be interesting and thought provoking long after I am dead? Or will this just be another collection of faddish ideas and my blogs soon relegated to the bottom of the “used blog” pile?

How long will my blogs be readable and how many people will really find value in my blogs? Will future generations coming upon these blogs, still think they are worth reading and reflecting on? From my current perspective, the readings in these blogs should still be useful whether you read them today, tomorrow or a hundred years from now. But of course, we all have blinders on and how can I know the future or what needs, wants, desires and problems people will be dealing with 100 or 200 years from now? Today, these issues and ideas seem meaningful and important. Tomorrow, they may just be another set of antique and quaint thoughts. Someone in the year 2200 coming upon this blog may wonder about how simple and naïve people were in the 21st century.

A second question I have pondered while writing these blogs deals with how many times you could read my reflections and still get any value out of them? Or how many times, you will need to read them before you get any value out of them? I have often read something several times before the light bulbs went on and I understood what the author was getting at. There are many questions in my blogs for you to answer.

Have you really been taking the time to answer these questions or do you just read the reflections and skip the answers? What if you did answer all of the questions? Do you think you would get more out of these blogs? Is it too late now or could you go back and start over if you have been skipping the questions? Would these blogs be more valuable to you if you did answer all of the questions? Have you found any value in answering the questions? Do you think you will ever read this blog again? Why or why not? Send me your opinions; I would love to hear from you. I notice my counter stands at 135, not exactly reaching the entire human race, but someone is out there and I hope to hear from you.

Day 340 of the Calendar Year

Being time versus doing time, do you know the difference? Doing time is busy time. It is time spent accomplishing things, getting things done and making things for the external world. Doing time is goal oriented and linear. It moves in a straight line and is never still. Being time is time spent with and on oneself. It is quiet time. It is time spent oblivious of attainment and goals. Being time does not recognize space and movement, it simply exists. During Being time, the world stands still and nothing happens. According to Robert Wolfe who wrote “Being Time”:

“Being time means being your whole self, the whole person whom you have always been and will always be. This person stretches from the moment of your conception to the moment of your death in one unbroken self that moves and acts in the present but exists in the past and future as well.” (http://www.kofersite.com/time.htm)

I once attended a Lifesprings Seminar which lasted for three days. The subject of the seminar was learning to be as well as do. One of the leaders made the statement that in contemporary society we think that by doing, doing, doing we will then be. She said that this was backwards. We must first be before we can do. Otherwise whatever we do will be twisted and warped. If we are not first a being of integrity and honesty, then how can anything we do not be warped? Many of us are on this false treadmill. We think that by doing and accomplishing great things, we can then just “be.” We don’t realize that unless we can first be that none of these accomplishments will help us to feel fulfilled. Accomplishments will all just pass away. They will be magnificent for the moment, but in a short time we will be back to living with our unfulfilled and unsatisfied self. Nothing can get you out of this trap. No amount of physical goods, designer clothes, expensive homes, cars, celebrity friends, degrees or money can overcome the doing trap. There is only one way to live and love yourself and that is by learning the secret of Being.

The famous existential philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote a book called: “Being and Time.” (1927). It is an exploration of the meaning of being as defined by temporal time, and is an analysis of time as a horizon for the understanding of being. If you have a bent for philosophy, this book can be very interesting. I have learned a great deal about Being time from many of the excellent books dealing with Zen Buddhism. The heart of Zen lies in understanding Being time. According to Dogen, a Zen Master (1200-1253):

“To be fully present in the immediate presencing here and now of being-time is to realize the presence-time of all life. As self and other are both times, practice and realization are times; entering the mud, entering the water, is equally time." (Dogen, Being Time, 1240)

In Western society, we sometimes say, “there is no time like the present.” Well, there is really no time but the present. We exist moment to moment and yet our minds worry about the past and the future. If we can exist in the moment, if we can learn to just be rather than do, we can quiet all fears and anxieties about what we will be, about the world and about life and death. Learning to just” be” is perhaps the most difficult task for any of us to achieve. I cannot honestly say that I have accomplished this or that I often find myself just being.

Nevertheless, I see it as a very worthwhile effort and while some would say it is an oxymoron to make it a goal, I try to reflect at least once a week on it. My weekly reflection is as: “Help me to BE as well as DO and to trust in the future by living today the best I can.” When I can accomplish this once a week and at least keep the value present in my life, I can feel a great difference in how I perceive the world and what is most important. The world and all the things I do are not nearly as important as I often think they are. Being a good person is at least as important as doing good things. From Being good will come Doing good.

Do you spend all of your time doing or can you just be? Do you appreciate the need for Being time? Do you have enough Being time in your life? Why not? What would it take to have more Being time in your life?

Day 339 of the Calendar Year

“I could not sleep at all last night, you were on my mind.” Have you ever had one of those nights where you just could not get to sleep because you were stuck on a thought? Perhaps it was a problem with a loved one or a problem at work. But you tossed and turned all night and finally threw in the towel and got up. Maybe you decided to read, or watch TV or just go out for an early breakfast. My, how time passes when we are stuck on a thought or how it does not pass! The night just seems to drag on and on. You want to go back to sleep but you can’t turn your brain off and laying in bed musing over the problem does not solve it. Your mind goes round and round in circles promoting one unsatisfactory theory after another. What if I had done this, or what if this had happened or what if I could do this? You are stuck on a Ferris wheel of thinking and as your mind turns the minutes seem to tick by. One minute for every idea or “what could have been” or what you should have done. Sleep is a time for the mind to rest, but sometimes when we are stuck on a thought the mind will not allow us to go to sleep and the clock will not cooperate either. No matter how tired we are or how badly we want to go to sleep, we cannot seem to turn our thoughts off.

Are there solutions for this problem? Sometimes I count sheep and this actually works sometimes. But for the most part, if I am really stuck on a thought, the only thing that seems to provide a remedy is to get up and do something. To admit that the night is over and I need to be in motion and not in bed. I may go for an early run, do homework, dishes, write, or catch up on emails, anything that will get my mind working somewhere else. Surprisingly, once I start some other activity, I no longer feel tired and I begin to feel energized. Lying in bed mulling over my problem is never very satisfactory and the time just seems to creep by. It is not time well spent until I finally decide to spend it differently. Sleep is a time for reenergizing unless we are stuck on a thought.

When was the last time you were stuck on a thought? What did you do about it? What helps you the most when you just can’t get to sleep and the thoughts keep rolling around in your head?

Day 338 of the Calendar Year

If you spent your time like you spent your money, how much time would you have left? I have 9,460,800 minutes left. You can calculate how much time you have left on this earth by doing the following:

1. To find you’re expected life span. Go to Google and type in “life span
calculator” or go to the following website:
http://www.cancer-info.com/life_span_calculator.htm
2. If you live in the USA and are reasonably healthy, you might just assume 78
if you are male and 82 if you are female.
3. Subtract your current age in years from your expected lifespan.
4. Multiply your “remaining” years, by 525,600/This is the number of minutes in
a year.

The figure that you get will be the number of minutes you have left to “spend.” Chances are you will be a millionaire, at least in terms of time. Now the question is “how will you spend your time.” Unlike money, you cannot choose not to spend it. Whether you choose or not, your time will be spent. The only choice you have is how you will spend your time. I have just spent 30 minutes of my time writing this short reflection. Was it worth it? My hope is that it will help you to think about how precious time is and how fast we spend it. If I have accomplished this goal, then my time was well spent. If not, well, “tomorrow’s another day.”

How many minutes do you have left to spend? Will you spend them wisely or will you “waste” them. What is a wise choice for you? Do you feel that you are making these choices? Why not? What will it take for you to spend your time more wisely?

Day 337 of the Calendar Year

Funeral time has been spent since the dawn of the human race. Evidence of ancient burial ceremonies has been found connected with Neanderthal skeletons. Funeral ceremonies vary from country to country and from religion to religion. Funerals may also vary depending on the nature of the deceased person’s life and occupation. For instance, funerals for police and fire fighters are somewhat unique. Funeral time is not always a time of sadness as one might expect. In some cultures, funerals can become quite celebrative. The traditional New Orleans Jazz Funeral starts off on a somber note but once the burial has occurred it changes into a celebration to commemorate the life of the deceased.

As I have grown older and attended more funerals, I have been surprised to find that sometimes death is a blessing in disguise. Many times the death of a loved one frees that person from a life of pain and torment. For this, we are very thankful. No one ever really comes out and wishes a person were dead, but how often have you heard someone say “they are better off now.” An unexpected gift from some funerals is the reuniting of relatives who may not have seen each other for many years. Funerals have a way of helping family members re-bond after years of arguments and disagreements. Perhaps it is because the death of anyone close makes us realize how short life is. Sometimes death comes so suddenly and unexpectedly that we can not really come to grips with it. When a young person in the prime of their life dies either through natural or unnatural causes, we find it difficult to accept their death. “Why did it have to happen?” “Why they and not us is a question that many of us ponder?”

We all face two kinds of deaths, the death of others and the deaths of ourselves. We will face the death of others many times and probably no two times will it be alike. We grow older and wiser as we visit many funeral ceremonies and have to come to grips with the death of loved ones and their effects on us and others.

We will only have to face our own death once or will we? Shakespeare said in his play Julius Caesar that “Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once." What does this mean to you? To me, it means that life is a risk and that each day I face a risk that it will be my last. I can choose to minimize risks but I cannot ever eliminate all of the risk associated with life. How much I minimize risk will determine the type of life I live. If I minimize too much risk, I will lead a very boring and sheltered life. It will be a life without surprises or variety. If I have too much risk, my life may be sweet but it will undoubtedly be short.

Do you want to know when or how you will die? Would you like to life forever? How would you like to die? What type of funeral do you want? Have you planned your funeral yet? Why not? What if death came knocking on your door tomorrow?

Day 336 of the Calendar Year

Psychological time refers to our actual perception of time rather than the “reality” of time. Much as art and beauty are in the eyes of the beholder, time is in the mind. There are times when the clock seems to fly and others when it drags. When we are enjoying ourselves or having fun, time seems to pass too rapidly. We wish the moment or day would last forever. It might feel like this when we are on vacation or spending time with people we like. However the opposite is true when we are doing things we really do not want to be doing. Time seems to drag by ever so slowly when we are bored or doing work that we hate. Time at a conference listening to a boring speaker can seem like an eternity. Time at an amusement park or something we deem entertaining will seem to pass too quickly. Time for one of us may be too fast while for someone else it might be too slow. Young children perceive time as passing very slowly and think of each day as a lifetime. The elderly count weeks going by as the young count days. Indeed, it sometimes seems like I turn calendar pages so fast, I forget what year it is. How often have I said to Karen “when was the last time we were there”, only to hear the answer “about 25 years ago.” Then I think: “Impossible, it seems like only yesterday.”

You have all heard stories about people who while having some kind of a life threatening event; will have their lives pass before them in a heartbeat. I have heard many people speak of how before an accident on a motorcycle occurs, everything will seem to be in slow motion until the actual crash. Imagine if there were clocks for psychological time. How do you suppose a clock like this would work? We could dial in slow days and fast days? If you wanted time to speed up, you simply set the clock on “speed up.” Vice versa, you could set it on slow down if you wanted things to last longer. This clock actually exists but it is in our minds and we often do not know what the key is. Our minds respond to stimuli and we are not able to alter the perceptions that we are having. Perhaps if we could, we might be able to change boredom into excitement or to slow the clock down on those times that we want to last longer. If the key is in our head, it must be there for the finding.

Can you control your perception of time? Do you know anyone who can? Does time fly when you do not want it to and drag when you wish it would fly? Do you think you have any control over this? Why not? What do you think it would take to change your perceptions of time and how it moves? Where is your key to be found?

Day 335 of ther Calendar Year

December is the last month in the Gregorian calendar. It is the month with the shortest daylight hours of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the longest daylight hours of the year in the Southern Hemisphere. It is winter in Minnesota and summer in Peru. In December, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, Jews celebrate Hanukkah, and African Americans celebrate Kwanzaa. Most of the world seems to be celebrating something in December. Gift-giving and shopping are the defining factors for many of us at this time of the year.

In Minnesota, we probably have our motorcycles and boats put away and have taken out our snowmobiles and ice-fishing houses. Ice skating and skiing also help us pass the long cold five months of winter. Some call Minnesota, the land of two seasons: Winter is coming and Highway Construction. In the past, there was never any question about a white Christmas, but with the global climate changes, winter in Minnesota is not what it used to be. Increasingly, we wait for the first major snowfall and wonder if we will have a white Christmas or even be able to get out and do much skiing or snowmobiling. For some of us, we miss the winters of time gone by. Others are perhaps not sure if global warming is really all that bad when winter becomes less snowy and milder.

The snowbirds will really not care though, since at the first sign of winter, many of them have bought their tickets to Miami or Phoenix where they will plan to spend the winter. This is not a choice for those who are poor or who are not retired. They must face whatever the winter will throw at them. However, even with global warming, we will get some good storms and some sub-zero temperatures. Someday, you too may be able to talk about how bad the winters were when you were young. At least if you lived in Minnesota.

What are your memories of winter? What characteristics of December most stand out in your mind? What do you most look forward to during this time of the year? What traditions are most important to you? Have you added any new traditions for your family?

Day 334 of the Calendar Year

Genesis is the first book of the Old Testament and the Torah. It is the book that tells about the beginning of creation and the early relationships between God and his “chosen” people. When we refer to the genesis of anything, we are talking about the beginning or creation of it. According to the Book of Genesis, it took God six days to make the world and he rested on the seventh. Today there is great debate over the literal accuracy of these words. Creationists want to hold to the biblical description as to how the world was created. Those of a more scientific mindset have put this description aside in favor of the Evolutionary theory developed by Darwin and others. This debate started many years ago and still continues.

The Creationists want to believe that “humans” were created in the “likeness” of God and not as a process of development from fishes to apes to humans. Evolutionists point to the scientific evidence that humans have “evolved” over time and that it took millions of years for us to become what we are today. Scientists like to talk about the “Big Bang” theory as to how the world and heavens were created. According to this theory, a cosmic mass of energy and matter exploded sending superheated particles of matter throughout the universe. This matter eventually coalesced into the bodies that we call planets, moons and suns. After eons of years, life began to form (at least on the third planet from the sun in our solar system) and then Homo Sapiens eventually emerged. Not all people subscribe to either theory. There are many who regard the Evolutionary theory with as much skepticism as the theory accepted by the Creationists.

I have another theory. My theory holds that it does not really matter one iota how the earth was created. I am more concerned with what we do to the earth today and less with how it was created or who created it. For all I care, it could have been created by a cosmic Leprechaun who had a really warped sense of humor. How else can you account for the acrimony that we humans can expend over the most senseless and useless issues? I would like to see 1/3 of the energy spent by Evolutionists and Creationists directed to help fight the environmental and economic problems that we see facing our world. Global warming (whether caused by man or nature) is happening, along with increased atmospheric and environmental pollution.

No one disagrees that we need to have economic development but at what price? Are beanie babies, IPods, disposable diapers and fertilizers to grow really pretty green lawns worth the costs incurred to the environment by their creation and usage? How much commercialism and development are our environment, forests, oceans and lakes worth? Where do we draw the line between commercial development and environmental responsibility? Who pays for the “externalities” that economists talk about?

Will we spend all of our time and energy in trivial debates about who created and how the earth was created and in denying the reality of problems that we see today? Or will we spend our energy to all work together to maintain and create the kind of blue-green world that we want to live in. Which side will you be on? What will you do to help create a clean environment? If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. Are you waiting for someone else to do it?

Day 333 of the Calendar Year

Church time! No, last week I learned that this is not the same as prayer time. Some of us associate church with praying, but you do not have to go to church to pray. At the service I attended last week at Bishop Watson’s church, the minister(standing in for Bishop Watson) emphasized the importance of coming to church on Sunday as a means of bonding with other like-minded people. It is not only a time to think about your soul but also a time for socializing and gathering with others. It is a time for sharing. The minister emphasized that “watching church on TV is not enough.” She said you have to go to church. She stressed how important the communal nature of the gathering was. I had never thought about church like this before. When I grew up, I hated going to church. I saw it as one hour of listening to sermons and lectures which had little or no meaning to me. I came to church, listened and then went home. There was little or no fellowship or interaction with the other church-goers.

Many believers feel that God resides in temples, churches, synagogues, mosques and other house of prayers. Other believers would say that god resides wherever you are. I have often wondered why you need to go to church to commune with god. However, if we all need fellowship and bonding with similar worshippers, then this puts another spin on the matter. Perhaps, we all need to worship together for the communal spirit that comes from congregating at our various places of worship.

I think it is interesting that we have different names for these places of worship depending on our religious orientation. We have temples, churches, synagogues and mosques. But the spirit of coming together and the reasons we do so, are similar. As human beings we all want to believe in something greater than ourselves. We seek out diverse groups or associations of like-minded individuals. We want to feel part of something larger than ourselves and we join clubs, associations, civic groups, volunteer groups and religious groups to fulfill these needs. We fulfill different needs with different groups. Some of these affiliations fill social, physical and economic needs but our spiritual needs are no less important.

How do you fulfill your spiritual needs? How do you share fellowship around these needs? How do you reach out to other people spiritually? Are you satisfied with your spiritual life and the blessings it brings you? What would it take to improve your spiritual life?

Day 332 of the Calendar Year

Wedding time- a time of joyous celebration and commitment, a time of happiness and the expectancy of long years spent with the partner of one’s choice. From another perspective, a time of youthful naiveté, a time of soon to be dashed dreams and a rude awakening to reality. People once got married much earlier then they are doing today. The average age of marriage has increased. People are living together more often and delaying marriage. You might think that this would impact the divorce rate but it does not seem to have had an impact yet. My favorite poem which my first wife found and gave to me when we were married went as follows:

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!" (Robert Browning, 1812-1889)

I am now married for the second time to another wonderful woman and I still think of these lines and what I want marriage to mean for me. It has entailed work, tears, pain and many arguments and disagreements. On the other hand, it has entailed joy, innumerable memories of good times together, a great deal of shared pleasure and more happiness than I would have ever thought possible. As we have grown older, we have gone to marriages of friends, close relatives and others of our generation. We are now going to the marriages of children of our friends, second marriages of our friends and soon marriages of our grandchildren.

I thought I would be going to more funerals as I aged and instead I seem to be going to more marriages. We will have gone to six marriages this year. Bear in mind, that I detest ceremonies and will try to get out of marriages and funerals unless they are of close friends or relatives. So what to make of wedding time? Why do people cry at weddings? How come we don’t laugh? I think there are some we should laugh at but I guess we are just too polite. Maybe that’s why we cry. We say its tears of joy but maybe it’s a realization that this marriage is really doomed. Let’s be honest, how many people do you know who have married the wrong person? How long did it take for them to wake up and realize this? Oh, but I should not be so cynical, lets give them a chance. Divorce statistics be damned!

How many times have you been married? Did you marry the right person? If not, when did you realize that they were not meant for you? What did you do about it? What would you change if you could go back now? How do you tell people that marriage requires a great deal of work to be successful? There will be problems in every marriage, but maybe the problem is not the other person. Do you think the problem could be you?

Day 331 of the Calendar Year

I suppose I should write about "Black Friday" but I think I will pass, instead I give you the following:

Chaos or Order, which rules your life? Chaos time is non-linear, non-ordered, non-sequential, unpredictable and multi-tasking. Order time is logical, linear, programmable, predictable and sequential. Some say time exists to bring order out of chaos. Our general view of chaos is that it leads to problems. Complex Adaptive Theory (Chaos Theory) subscribes to the viewpoint that the world is nominally chaotic and that only by understanding that the world is in a state of constant disequilibrium can we fully appreciate it. Here is one definition of Chaos Theory:

"Chaos theory, in mathematics and physics, deals with the behavior of certain nonlinear dynamical systems that (under certain conditions) exhibit the phenomenon known as chaos, most famously characterized by sensitivity to initial conditions (see butterfly effect). Examples of such systems include the atmosphere, the solar system, plate tectonics, turbulent fluids, economies, and population growth." www.wikipedia.org

The implications of Chaos Theory have had profound effects on the way scientists and even lay people now view the world. We realize that our planning methods, our prediction methods and out strategies are subject to a great deal more unpredictability and serendipity then we once believed. This does not mean that we cannot or should not plan, but it implies that the degree of accuracy of our planning is subject to many outside and uncontrollable forces. Some even believe that planning is a waste of time. I disagree. If anything, I am more likely to plan but I build in more contingencies. I do agree that it is naïve to forecast without considering the concept of “sensitivity to initial conditions” or the idea of “wild cards.” Both of these ideas imply that there are many factors which might alter our plans and over which we have no control. Nevertheless, I have had over 1000 plane trips during the last twenty two years and in every case except one, I have arrived on-time at the place I wanted to go. Either I am very lucky or the world can be ordered. Maybe we can’t order everything and maybe it is foolish to try but many events, programs and activities happen every day based on “order time.”

What is your view of time? Is your time Chaotic or Ordered? Do you plan based on Chaos time or Order time? How effective has your planning been? How do you think your planning could be more effective? Would thinking about Chaos time help your planning?

Day 330 of the Calendar Year

Lifespan is an interesting way of looking at time. The average lifespan of a male during the Roman Empire was 28 years. During the course of the 20th century, average life expectancy in the US rose by 57 percent, from about 49 years of age in 1901 to 77 years by the year 2000. Males and females have different life spans and different countries today may vary considerably in the life spans of their citizens. Average life expectancy in Japan is 82.02 and in Angola it is 37.63 (The Worldfact book, www.cia.gov). All of these numbers though may be meaningless for us individually as they are simply averages. Teenagers today are involved in a high percentage of fatal car accidents and many will not live to be 21. If you smoke, drink heavily, eat poorly and never exercise, you may live to be 100 but I would not bet on it.

What are the factors that contribute to a long lifespan? These are certainly well known by actuaries who determine insurance rates based on them. Some would include: culture, heredity, health patterns, life style, job and even luck plays a factor. If you buy a life insurance policy, you are gambling that you will get more benefits out of it than you have paid in. Since insurance companies are well armed with facts and data, you are probably going to lose the bet. One of the most important contributions to increased longevity was not from any advances in medicine but was from public health education. According to the Dept of Public Health, Twenty-five of the 30 years of increased life expectancy in the US during the last century can be attributed to public health initiatives rather than medical advances. Thus, we need to add hygiene to our list of factors that contribute to longevity. When we near our final hours, medical science will do all it can to stretch our last minutes on this earth. In fact, it has been stretching our life for some time now but there is definitely a cost attached to the effort.

Nevertheless, most of use would be willing to trade a few more dollars for a few more hours on earth. However, many people see the foolishness of trying to extend their life beyond a reasonable point and opt to forego these last minute catastrophic life saving procedures. What is a reasonable time to live is a question that many of us will answer quite differently. What do you think is a reasonable time to live? What are the circumstances that might cause you to “throw in the towel?” Have you developed a living will to specify what procedures you will forego or are you leaving it to others to decide? This can be a terrible decision for others to make.

If you are living in the USA today, you can ponder these questions after you have had your fill of turkey and stuffing. If so, give thanks today for the life you live, for many others in the world will not be celebrating and if they did, they would not have much to celebrate in terms of expecting a long life.

Day 329 of the Calendar Year

Magic time is any time that magic is performed. When we go to a magic show, time as we know it maybe grossly distorted. Flowers can grow from a seed to full bloom in a few seconds and we have seen chicks turned into chickens and other tricks that seem to make us doubt our concepts of time. Magicians such as Merlin were said to be able to make accurate prophecies because they could go backward and forward in time and hence knew exactly what was going to transpire. Magicians play with our ideas of what should be and what we expect can be. "Magic," said Harry Blackstone, the great magician, is "nothing but pure psychology — applied in the right place."

Our minds can easily be fooled because we all have expectations of what should be and what is. For instance, older actors can be made to look younger and vice versa by simply changing hair color or adding some gray streaks or removing gray streaks. We associate age with graying and hair loss (at least in men). We trick the ideas of others and try to appear generally younger than we really are. We perform a sort of magic trick. Magic is simply the art of creating an illusion. Time plays a role here because time is another illusion. Who is to say that someone 60 years old is really not younger than someone 50 years old? If we measured time by degree of health, it is quite possible that many “older” people are actually younger than some younger people.

Yesterday, a friend of mine who attended the International BMW Riders Annual Event told me that the rider who received the award for most mileage done last year (63,000 miles in one year) was an 85 year old woman. How many younger motorcyclists could or would be able to do that much mileage in one year? Our fixed ideas of life and time create boxes for many us that limit what we can do or can be. Little children are so delightful because their ideas about time and life are not as rigid as adults. The new generation of computer kids doesn’t know that they have to wait until they are old to become billionaires. It is not unusual to see some twenty something with a billion dollar Start-up Company.

What expectations and ideas do you have about life that have been tricked by “magic?” Have you ever thought you were too old to do something? Or that someone was too young to so something? Why? What would you like to do today that you think you are too old to do? What about too young to do? What would you do with your life if time did not matter?

Day 328 of the Calendar Year

Party-time! Wow, how we all love parties. Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y all have one thing in common. They all love parties. I have a party to go to! It’s a wedding party, a dinner party, an office party, a graduation party, a birthday party, a Halloween party, a holiday party, or just a plain old party. I have to get ready for the party. What will I wear? How will I look? What time should I arrive? What should I bring? What should I say when I get there? Will so and so be there? Questions, anxiety, propriety and tradition all fill our minds when we think of going to a party. Yet, few of us will refuse a party invitation unless we have an even better party to go to.

We seldom ask what it means to party as we assume we know. Nevertheless, we all have a very different idea of what “party-time” means. Some of us see it as a chance to drink and eat. Some of us see it as a chance to meet and mingle with the other sex. Some of use see it as chance to network and refresh our business contacts. Some of us see it as a chance to show off our new status or accomplishments. All of us have different associations of what party-time means.

Traditionally, a party is a time to celebrate and join together with others in a socially relaxed setting. In more modern times, business has been added as a legitimate element of parties. We now have Amway Parties, Tupperware Parties and Lingerie Parties. Most often we find women going to these. Have you ever wondered why we don’t have these house parties for men? Of course, men have stag parties and bachelor parties, but women now have bachelorette parties. Maybe men get enough of their business done on the golf course. What is your favorite type of party? Why? What is the best party you have ever gone to? If you could design the greatest party in the world, how would it look? Who would you invite? Where would you have it? How long would it last? Can I come?

Day 327 of the Calendar Year

Recreation time is something we learn to value as little children. It is that time when we can “re”-create; meaning we can go out to play and have fun. Every culture in the world knows the meaning of recreation time. Doctors and scientists tell us how important it is for adults as well as children to have recreation time. It is an essential time for growth and development. We actually re-create ourselves. How do we do this? By using recreation time to pursue other interests, by being less goal oriented and by exploring things that have no immediate payoff. Recreation is doing things just for the fun of doing them without expectation of gain or reward.

As the world becomes more global and more competitive, perhaps we all need more recreation time both at work and at home. The fifteen minute break time you get at work is not the same as recreation time. That brief respite is designed to prevent you from having a nervous or physical break down. It is not nearly enough time to help you to recreate. Organizations pay lip service to the idea of growth and development but provide hardly enough time for it to happen. Colleges are one of the few institutions that give paid sabbaticals. I have often thought sabbaticals should be mandatory for all institutions both profit and non-profit. Imagine, if you could get paid to take off for a year. You could use this time to attend classes, go on vacation, pursue new hobbies or learn some new skills. Why should a company pay for you to have time off? The simple answer is because new skills and training will benefit the company. Ideally what helps any of us become better people will help our society and our economy. This is taking a long term view of growth which is not widely recognized in organizations. Many companies refuse to reimburse for tuition and schooling unless it is directly related to the present job. This is taking the short view of life.

Well, enough writing for now. It is time for me to re-create. What are you going to do today for recreation? How much time each day do you allow for recreation? Can you say that you have fun each and every day of the week? Why not? What would it take to change your life to have more fun? When do you propose to start? How many people do you know who started a career or a business based on something that they once did for fun? Why not get paid to do what you think is fun? Maybe you can put the joy and creativity in your career that you found in your hobby. Why should work not be fun? Why can’t fun be work?

Day 326 of the Calendar Year

Prayer time seems very appropriate today. Could there be a message here? I am going to a church service today (Sunday) led by a friend of mine. He recently left another church to start a new church. He often said he did not feel like the other church was going in the direction that he wanted it to and that there was a lot of old baggage in the church. Starting new was a way for Bishop Bill to create a direction that he felt was more in keeping with his idea of God’s mission.

In the words of Bishop William A. Watson, III, "Bishop Bill” founder and Senior Pastor of the Revelation Christian Center, International:

"Know that you are free to worship in any way that Biblical decorum demands and the Holy Spirit leads. We are not concerned about where you've come from, we want to help you to get where you are going. Your past is just that, the past. We will help you focus on your future."

Of course, prayer time does not have to be on a Sunday or in a church. You can pray anytime and anywhere. Prayer is a conversation between you and your god or spirits. Prayer is universal. Catholics, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus all pray. Many spiritual leaders espouse the value of prayers in their lives. Atheists might also find value in prayer. Even if you are not deeply religious, prayer can be helpful. There are many methods and types of prayers. For instance, a prayer well known by AA members is:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
--Reinhold Niebuhr

Another one of my favorite prayers has been attributed to Big Thunder (Bedagi) a late 19th. Century Algonquin:

Give us hearts to understand;
Never to take from creation's beauty more than we give;
Never to destroy wantonly for the furtherance of greed;
Never to deny to give our hands for the building of earth's beauty;
Never to take from her what we cannot use.

To learn more about prayer and the value it can give to your life, a good place to go is the following website: http://www.worldprayers.org/ At the World Prayers website, you will find many great prayers organized into an easy to use database representative of all life affirming faiths and spiritual practices without preference to any one. If you think prayer is only for deeply religious people, you are wrong. Prayer can be helpful to all of us as it allows us to reflect on the important things in life. I have never believed in prayer as a way of getting anything free or as a way of circumventing the work of life. In fact, I love the short prayer that goes: “Pray to the lord and row for the shore.” Prayer is not a substitute for living but it can be a very meaningful and worthwhile addition to your life.

Do you pray? How often? Has prayer helped you to live a more meaningful life? Have you ever thought of praying on a regular basis? Why not? Do think more prayer and reflection could help your life? What would it take to put aside five minutes for prayer each day in your life?

Day 325 of the Calendar Year

Holidays or holy-days! When does a holy-day become a holiday and vice versa? Is Christmas a holiday or a holy-day? Is Easter a holy-day or a holiday? Is the Fourth of July a holiday or a holy-day? Do we any longer care? It often seems like it is just another day off to most people? Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Labor Day and many other “special” days have lost their meaning. They have become corrupted by our greed for leisure time and pleasure. How many of us celebrate their true meaning anymore? Is the meaning of Christmas in Santa Claus and the frantic search for new toys and the right gift? Is the meaning of Easter in the Easter bunny and colored eggs? Is the meaning of Thanksgiving in a stuffed turkey?

The word “holy” means: “belonging to or derived from or associated with a divine power” (http://www.thefreedictionary.com). While I would not want to be thought of as the Grinch who stole Christmas, I think we have lost sight of the sacred and the divine in too many of our holy-days. “Render unto Caesar and render unto God”! We have become lost with Caesar and forgotten God in our zest for celebration. Our sense of the divine and sacred has been subordinated to our sense of recreation and entertainment. Holy-days have become holidays and we forget their very reason for being. There is a great loss in this forgetting. Who is more important, God or Caesar? We can lose our direction and purpose in life by leaving out the sacred and holy and replacing it with the mundane and material.

Do you remember the sacrifices that many made for your liberty on the 4th of July or your day of independence? Do you remember the heroism and suffering paid by millions on Memorial Day or May Day for your freedom? Do you stop to give thanks for your blessings on your Holy Days or is it just business as usual? Are you one of those who have lost your sense of perspective on these special days? Are your holy-days just another day of vacation? What will it take for you to put the holy back into your holidays and to remember their true meaning?

Day 324 of the Calendar Year

History or Her-story, which do you prefer? History is said to be told by the winners, so who tells her-story? Some might think that changing words is nothing more than semantics or perhaps political correctness. However, words have the power to shape and create. The pen has often been mightier than the sword. Words shape our reality by influencing our perceptions and our concepts of reality. What we hear and how we define meaning will prejudice what we see and what we believe. History is the story of “mankind.” But is history really the story of humankind? Who is left out of a history told (at least in school books) from a rather slanted perspective? Do we hear history from minorities, from women, from the losers?

As an example of how perspective shapes our meaning of history, in America, we have the Revolutionary War or the War for Independence. In America, the colonists were revolutionaries and freedom fighters. The British saw our war as a revolt. To them, the colonists were lawbreakers and terrorists. Another example: during the sixties, the civil rights protestors in the South were fire hosed, beaten and arrested. They were regarded by lawmakers and others as trouble makers and radicals who wanted to destroy the country. This view would hardly be shared by the protestors who wanted the right to vote, go to the bathroom and have the same schools as the white majority. Not to mention eat in the same restaurants and sleep in the same hotels.

History is ideally a recording of the events that happened in past times. Washington chopped down the cherry tree. Lincoln returned the penny. But did they really? What if we cannot ever know the “historic” truth? What if history is so full of prejudice and distortion that we can never see the underlying reality? What if there is no underlying reality? Perhaps, the only reality is the reality told by the historian. Those who write history create it. There is no answer to this dilemma since it is the dilemma of life. We are always subjected to multiple views of reality and it is up to us to piece together the best view we can. The truth may be that there is no truth, only your truth. My truth and yours may indeed by different. Truth and history are processes that will constantly undergo transformation and change. The history you hear today may change tomorrow. The stories that are told today will change over time. The interpretations that we provide will be distorted and altered by other story tellers and other her-storians.

Do not be so sure of your reality! Do not be so sure of what you read and hear! Will you ever read this blog again? Do you think your ideas and interpretations of what you are reading now will change if you do read it again? What if you wait ten years and then read it again? How do you think your ideas will change? If you are reading it again ten years from now, what has changed in your feelings about this blog and its meanings?

Day 323 of the Calendar Year

Question time! To children the world is one big question. Young children ask questions about everything and exhibit little or no shame in asking the most private of questions or the silliest. As children progress in school, you can literally see their innate curiosity decrease. Ask a question in kindergarten or the first grade and every hand in the room will go up. Try the same thing in high school, college or grad school and you will see progressively less hands raise. I would argue that there is a direct correlation between the number of years in school and the number of percentage of hands that are raised in each grade. I have had direct experience with this and I can sadly assure you that it is true. What are we doing with our schools when we progressively kill the curiosity and questioning that is at the root of all creativity and development? Are we teaching too many right answers and the importance of getting the “right” answer on tests at the expense of teaching creativity and curiosity?

We teach that there are right definitions and wrong definitions and of course, the teacher’s definition is the correct one. Rest assured, it will be on the weekly exam. In life, there are many answers and many definitions. True, some will be wrong, but there are certainly many ways to “skin the cat.” In science, the concept is called “equifinality” and it means that there are many paths to the same destination. When we award stars and bars for getting the right answer, we are progressively sensitizing students to the power of conformity. My answer is right! Don’t think for yourself! It is important to get the right answer on the test. There is only one right answer. Where does curiosity go? Where do new ideas come from if we don’t ask questions and challenge the status quo?

Have your ever been afraid of asking a question? Why? What thoughts went through your mind while you hesitated? Are you afraid of being wrong, looking stupid, having people laugh at you? Do you think they laughed at the Wright Brothers or Thomas Edison or Thomas Fulton? How many great ideas can you think of that people first laughed at?

Day 322 of the Calendar Year

Time Zones are regions of the earth that have adopted the same standard time, usually referred to as the local time. Before the adoption of time zones, people used local solar time but this became a problem as railways and telecommunications improved. As people began to travel more, it became even more of a problem because clocks differed between places by an amount corresponding to the difference in their geographical longitude. The “solution” to synchronize all clocks to the same time meant that in some areas of the world, 12 midnight would occur during broad daylight and 12 noon would occur in absolute darkness. “Time zones are thus a compromise, relaxing the complex geographic dependence while still allowing local time to approximate the mean solar time” (Wikipedia).

With the advent of high speed plane travel, time zones have become somewhat of a major nuisance to many travelers. We have all experienced the concept of Jet Lag which appears to be induced by crossing multiple time zones. This has the effect of throwing our bodies into a state of disequilibrium which can take several days to readjust. There are 24 time zones spaced at intervals of 15° in longitude. You can go forward in time and lose time or backwards in time and gain time depending on your direction of travel. If you go west, you will gain time as you cross time zones and if you travel east, you will lose time as you cross time zones. What makes this system even more confusing is the International Date Line.

The International Date Line is the imaginary line on the earth that separates two consecutive calendar days. The date in the Eastern hemisphere, to the left of the line, is always one day ahead of the date in the Western hemisphere. Without the International Date Line, travelers going westward would discover that when they returned home, one day more than they thought had passed, even though they had kept careful tally of the days. (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/international_date.html)

If you have ever traveled very much, you will find that these systems are very irritating and perplexing. It is easy to lose track of what time it is where you started from and what time it will be where you are going. You may gain a day or lose a day. I have almost arrived back before I left from some trips. For instance, if you cross seven time zones from say Paris to Minnesota and you leave Paris at 7 AM and your plane could make the trip in 6 hours, you would arrive back one hour before you left. On the other hand, the flight there would take 13 hours even though the plane could make it in six.

There are all sorts of tips, tricks, etc, to follow to minimize the impact of jet lag. Over the course of several years, I have tried quite a few of them. I am still not sure which if any really work. Going west, going east, coming home, going there have all been equally hard or easy at one time or another. The more you travel, the easier it is to adjust, but it always takes some adjustment. I was more than happy a few years ago to stop flying as much as I had. With the new changes in airport security, I would just as soon stay home unless I was going on vacation.

How have you been affected by time zones and date lines? Do they impact your life at all? Do you ever notice their effects? Do you call across time zones or travel frequently across time zones? What do you do to minimize jet lag when you travel?

Day 321 of the Calendar Year

The Walls of Time is an interesting metaphor on time. The phrase is from the title of a Bluegrass music song by Bill Monroe. The lyrics sing of a dead loved one and the promise to join her someday:

I hear a voice out in the darkness
It moans and whispers through the pines
I know it's my sweetheart a calling
I hear her through the Walls of Time.

One can picture various walls and various structures that make a wall. Regardless of what you picture, walls separate us and compartmentalize us. A Wall of Time separates us as surely as a physical wall. Walls of Time separate generations and structure the entire history of the human race. Walls between generations make it difficult to communicate with the past. We have different life experiences that lead to different assumptions and even different stereotypes of the world. Youth see the world one way and the elderly see the world another way. Those from one generation are indelibly stamped with events and happenings which color and prejudice their view of reality. A Wall of Time separates the living from the living and the dead from the living. We are all creatures of a time that will never happen again. The choices we make and even who we become are stamped by the time in which we are born. Some might even say predetermined by our time of birth.

What does it take to pass through the Wall of Time? Can it be done? Some believe that the dead can return or even continue to walk the earth. Have you ever been to a séance? Have you ever tried to communicate to a dead loved one? Many people say they have. However, none has yet proved that they can pass through the Wall of Time to communicate with anyone dead. Do you think it is possible? Can you pass through the Wall of Time with the dead or the living? Can you even transcend the cultures and habits of the time period in which you were born?

Day 320 of the Calendar Year

Crazy time today often has a very negative connotation. We think of the crazies in our world and the damage they often do. We try to figure out what made them crazy or what ticked off their crazy streak. We wonder “How could anyone do something so bizarre? What made them do such things?” However, being somewhat crazy and having some crazy time can have other connotations. For instance, many of us are straitlaced and very update. We are constantly honed to think about our duties, responsibilities and obligations to others and ourselves. There comes a time when maybe we all need to let go of these, to become somewhat “crazy.” Here are four definitions of the word crazy:

1. Mentally deranged; demented; insane.
2. Senseless; impractical; totally unsound: a crazy scheme.
3. Informal. Intensely enthusiastic; passionately excited: crazy about baseball.
4. Informal. Very enamored or infatuated (usually fol. by about): He was crazy
about her. (www.dictionary.com)

No one wants the first definition to apply to them, but the second definition has often been applied to geniuses and entrepreneurs, while the third and fourth definitions have probably applied to all of us at one time or another. Who among us is not crazy about something? Thus, craziness is simply a state of being that others do not share at that time. This could also be considered the essence of nonconformity. Those who dance to their own drummers seldom share the same state of being that others do. Thus, going a little crazy might be good not only for our spirit but also for our creative side. Who among us would venture out and do anything really unique or different if we were not willing to flaunt convention and practical reality? In fact, craziness might just be the sine qua non of the adventurous and spirited.

Have you ever been called crazy? Why? Do you ever indulge in activities that others think are crazy? What would your life be like if you were just a little more crazy? What if you danced a little crazier? Acted a little crazier? Dressed a little crazier?

Day 319 of the Calendar Year

“Prison Time” is the one time I have never done nor do I have any desire to do. Of course, like many of you, I have watched countless movies dealing with crime and imprisonment, so I do not feel totally alien to the concept. This is not to say that I can empathize completely since I have never really been there. However, let me try to imagine “doing life” in a prison.

No parole, no chance of ever getting out. Endless days and nights spent in the same room, looking at the same walls and eating the same food. There is someone telling you when to get up, when to eat, when to talk and when to walk on the hour, every day, seven days a week. Routine and monotony piled on routine and monotony. Never smelling the flowers, never cuddling with your loved ones, never running and playing with your children, never walking in the woods, never fishing or swimming in the lake, never going to any place exotic for vacation, never riding your cycle, bicycle, skis, snowmobile, ATV, rollerblades, skateboard, sailboat or motorboat. Never, piled on never, piled on never, for the rest of your life. Then you grow old and die. Forgotten and scorned by all who knew you.

Maybe my portrait of prison time is too bleak or maybe not bleak enough. Some of you will know and you can send me your own feelings. I do not want to find out for myself. Buy I can’t imagine it being worth it. Prison time is a result of a collision of factors that no one imagined possible at the time. Surely, the perpetrator and the victim did not want the intended outcome. The victim did not choose to be a victim and the criminal did not think they would end up doing prison time. However, outcomes are a result of actions and when you put ethics, morals and laws aside to pursue selfish motives and desires, the results can be catastrophic to both parties. We may not be thinking about “prison time” at the time of the crime. If we did, would life have been different? Is prison time a deterrent for crime? It would appear not judging by the number of incarcerated felons or by the recidivism rate.

Thus, we are left with prison time as a sad byproduct of a series of events gone astray. Society has a set of morals and values that once put aside will lead to the harming of at least one and perhaps many more people. Is there such a thing as a victimless crime? What amount of prison time do you think would be a deterrent to you? Can you imagine doing ten years, twenty years, thirty years or a lifetime behind bars? What would make spending such time worthwhile for you? Is there anything you would take this risk for?