once a year go somewhere youve never been before.

dali lama

the moment passes and you wonder where it went. how you spent it. Perhaps you think of the food you ate, the conversation you just had or simply the websites and news stories that appeared almost miraculously on your screen. As random and as incongruent as our thoughts. In fractions, our days seem to be full of wasted efforts and meaningless banter. Even to meditate we sit quietly and do nothing, focusing on the breath, according to many it is in doing nothing where we can find everything. and perhaps this is the ruse.

It’s interesting that throughout our lives we waste so much of it. Time that is. With school, work and other activities we rush from place to place without a moment to think of what we are doing. And if it is threatened, our lives that is, we cling onto it with all our might. Only to come out again on the other side to waste if further. On countless hours of television, or collecting this or that, on meandering in and out of conversations, as long as it is on our terms it is not considered wasting. And there is much truth in this. Time is for wasting, but it is on our own terms that we hold this term dear. 

 the idea that we have any control over this is another matter. things appear, suddenly in our perception, an idea, a phone call a problem. we engage with it, ignore it, or a mixture of both. it, much like us, engages further or dissipates. we are biological puppets that can pretend to control our destinies. it creates this space where we can apply words like waste and usefulness. through time the game goes on until we are too tired or bored to engage it any further and so it stops. another moment unfolds and time runs away, the money has increased or decreased, our sense of worth and direction might have moved a bit on our imaginary compass, our friend or lover thinks more or less of us, behind us the past has unfolded, in front is a litany of choices we think we can make, effortlessly another thought emerges and a tree falls somewhere in the woods to be witnessed by few but fallen nevertheless.