Friday, July 3, 2009

Seasons Change, Time Passes As the Weeks Become Months, Become Years.

All right, so I’m not particularly in the mood to write anything deep or exuberant at the moment, but there has been something on my mind for a long while now, that I would like to address. And, as I ponder more and more upon this subject, I can’t help but feel more and more like I am slowly sinking into a pit of some sort, and in no way can claw my way out.

Good sirs and ladies, I am of course talking about something that, like most God-given things, can be our best of friends, or our worst of enemies:

Time.

I often think back to when I was a child, at home on a Saturday. It felt like I had so much time on my hands I had no idea what to do with it. I used to sit around at the kitchen table, drawing comics and writing stories all day, and not even give a care what time in the afternoon it was.

Now as an adult, I don’t even feel like I have enough time to tie my shoe laces. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but a lot of the time it feels like it. I am a naturally slow person; I like to take my time doing things, because if I don’t I will perpetually make mistakes. So why is it that I’m constantly feeling like I’m being rushed?

Well, it’s because I AM constantly being rushed. Rushed inadvertently by my impatient father, rushed by my perpetually-stressed managers (Four of them!), and rushed by fellow drivers, who, instead of acknowledging the Maximum Limit speed signs as, well, the maximum speed, think of them more of suggestions or guidelines.

Hrm ... This seems familiar...

Unfortunately, not many people understand – or appreciate, for that matter – my mantra of stopping to smell the roses. I don’t know what it’s like outside of Ontario other than what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen briefly from week-long vacations, but it seems to me like our little province has more in relation with the USA than it does with the rest of Canada.

As far as I know, the majority of the population is made up of adults. I’m just going to go out there and take that guess. And the reason I am going to make that assumption is because it would explain why the world as I know it has the mentality of “GO GO GO”, and “NICE GUYS FINISH LAST”.

What I mean by the above statement is that it seems to be a general consensus that as you grow older, time fleets by at a gradual, but equally alarming rate. But then again, it could also be because we’re under pressure by not only other people, but by the media, which has taught us to be more greedy/selfish/impatient than we already are, into the mentality of speed over quality.

Speed over quality. Hm. I notice this trait in so many things… movies, video games, construction – and the most obvious – fast food.

Isn’t it a shame that even bare necessities, such as food and shelter, are left overturned and hampered by such a simple thing as time?

Unfortunately, there are so many things in life that are against us, the most evident being our own mortality. And that’s why I think it’s very important for us to stop running so much, and start walking. Yahweh, Allah, Vishnu, Diana, whoever created us all – I don’t think He or She intended for us to go about in our short lives constantly weaving in and out of traffic.

Last I checked, the hare lost the race.