Aging Capriciously

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.

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?

“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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?