On Time

Wake up, got another day to get
Through now, got another man to see
Gotta call him on the telephone AY-O
Gotta find a piece of paper
Sit down, got another letter to write
Think hard, gotta get a letter just right
Little ringin' on the telephone oh no,
Gotta write another letter

Got The Time

Anthrax (Originally by Joe Jackson)

When I was a kid, time dragged.  I remember saving up enough points from buying GI Joes to where you could special order toys that were only available via the mail.  And taping the points to the order form, stealing a stamp from my Dad, and tossing it in the mailbox.  And waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting.  Reality is that it was probably the prescribed 4-6 weeks but to my 10 year old self it felt like 4-6 years passed.

Drives from Aurora to Morrison in Colorado were best calculated in the number of books that I could read during the journey.  God help me if I was stuck with only a single book to read while my parents bought a car, or went grocery shopping for that matter.  I might go insane with boredom as I watched the clock tick oh so slowly. 

I remember counting the days until I was old enough to drive as I watched with insane jealousy as my friends got their licenses.  I was working the day that I got my license and I remember slowly going insane as I watched the clock and waited for my Dad (who I worked with) to get done so that we could go to the DMV and just get it done, already.  

The end of High School was a slow, interminable march.  The last six months of my Senior year lasted six years, easily as I counted the hours toward freedom.  

But even then though I knew it.  Time was speeding up.

Fast forward to today.  I work from home most of the time, which is great.  My day starts at 5:30 or 6 and I am at my desk no later than 7, even on the days where I actually go in to the office.  At any given moment I might be:

• In a conference call and/or Skype For Business session.  I'll have the presentation/meeting area up on one monitor.
• IM'ing with 2-3 people while I am in the meeting on everything from crucial decisions that need to be made to casual conversations.  I'll do this on my second monitor
• Talking to my wife who is leaving for the day and like me has one eye on the Skype session to make sure I am on mute while we discuss what to have for dinner
• Checking and responding to email on a third monitor
• Petting one or more dogs
• Doing any of the dozen or so other tasks that I have on my to do list that day

Simultaneously.

I will look up and it will be noon.  Well, that explains why I'm  hungry.  Too bad I have another meeting.  

I will look up and it will be 5.  Yep, still hungry.  You'd think that I would be thinner.

I break away to start my evening.  Shit.  Its 10:00.  If I go to bed now I'll get 8 hours.  Oooh I should probably click that Facebook link.  What's this?  A text with a link to the 32 football teams ranked by the depression level of their fans?  Oh, now its 11:00.

My Dad was 30 when I was born.  When I was 10 he was 40, 20- 50, and so on.  When I was 20 and he turned 50 I thought, man, my Dad is old.  Now that I am 42, the gap between us has shortened for me.  For him?  I don't know, but I suspect that time is flying by at such a rapid rate that the gap has grown exponentially.

We try to cheat time.  We alter our physical appearance and our physiology.  We stay up later and get less sleep.  Technology has allowed us to vastly improve our efficiency, allowing us to get more done in less time.  But we've instead taken that opportunity to do more with less and turned it into just plain doing more.  

The more that we do, the less that we sleep, the faster that time marches on.  It is inexorable, and inevitable.

When I was 5, time crept along and a 30 minute cartoon consumed me.

When I was 10, I might play with a toy with that cartoon in the background.

When I was 18, I might listen to some metal on a car stereo, smoke a cigarette, have a conversation about the best AC/DC song and play hacky sack while debating asking a girl out on a date all with little to no idea what time it was.

When I was 30, I'd be trying to wrap up what I was doing so I could make it to the airport and get home on a Friday after being away for a week, traveling to 3 or four cities, staying in 3-4 hotels, and having countless meetings.

Now that I am 40, well I've already walked you through that.

What the hell is 50 going to look like?

I cannot remember the last time that I was bored.  My brain rarely stops, and I find that I have to literally make myself reboot a few times a night when I am supposed to be sleeping.  (This isn't a metaphor.  I've learned that I can actually shut myself off and go back to sleep by visualizing my hand on a mouse clicking Start->Power->Restart.  Without it, I'd get maybe 3 hours of sleep a night.)

Time is precious.  It is the only thing that stands between us and our final destiny.  There is very little of it, and it slips through our hands whether we want it to or not.  

Time is short, it is fleeting.  What we do with it determines...what, exactly?

Use your time wisely friends.  What that means is up to you, but I think that the definition itself changes.

With time.

Keep searching, keep on searching

This search goes on, this search goes on

Frantic tick tick tick tick tick tick tock

Frantic tick tick tick tick tick tick tock

My lifestyle (Birth is pain)

Determines by deathstyle (Life is pain)

A rising tide (Death is pain)

That pushes to the other side (It's all the same)

Frantic

Metallica