Midnight in Dewey

I just walked back from the beach where, rather sappily, I stood in the darkness and found myself thinking about Albert Camus essay "Myth of Sisyphus."

Here I am on Carolina Street, where I've lived for twenty three or so summers.  I've biked back here so many nights and wound up in this very spot, looking at the same houses and the same lights casting shadows across the beach.  I was a prince of Dewey once, and now I look out and see that although I am in the same place, it is not at all the same.

Even the notion that I am in the same physical location is false.  The Earth rotates on its axis, and traces a giant elliptical orbit around the nearest star.  As it rotates, the axis itself processes.   The chances that in a few short years I would be able to stand in the same place are tiny.

The beach is here, but dredging makes its physical form alien to me.  The hard pack trail over the dune isn't what I remember walking over after seeing the sunrise over the ocean.  The waves are still there, but that water has since been swept across the globe by various currents.

So I find myself wishing that by being here, now, in the same bed I used to sleep in, that I could wake up those few short years ago tomorrow morning.  That all I had to worry about was getting on my old Specialized Hard Rock and biking down to open the sailing club for the day, or maybe waking up to lay on the beach before biking down to wash dishes in the back of Ponos.

An allusion to the sand blowing against my legs to the "sands of time" would be cliche, so I'll leave it out.
What was it about those times that brought such happiness?  Do I really hate the status quo so much?

No, what made my reign in Dewey so wonderful wasn't the place.  It was the time and place.  It was the people, the friends I had, the people I love.  I don't miss the space, I miss the spacetime.

If there is one thing I can't stand, its a lack of control.  I don't mean in the sense of being able to manipulate others and get whatever I want at the time, I mean the fear of being unable to control anything.  It's that sneaking fear that the last time you kissed the one you love was the last chance you ever had.  The dread that I am nothing more than a grain of sand, tossed around by forces completely out of my control.

So I suppose one must be thankful for not only all the good things they have, but all the good things they've had.  Even if they happened in the past, their goodness isn't invalidated simply because the consciousness that experienced them, bound by perception, bound by a body, bound by time, occupies a different point in spacetime at this moment.

One cannot be lulled into a lackadaisical sloth by the helplessness they feel over this lack of control.  No, they must strive on and affect what little change they can.  And now one feels the struggle, pushing endlessly onward up the hill.  The chances that the boulder I struggle against will only roll down again are just as good as the chances that the spot by the lifeguard chair where I stood will not be the same.  Still, one strives to obtain the life they want, to grasp the things that make them happy and hold on.  And so, tomorrow morning, when I get onto a now different bike and press down onto the pedals, I'll know that the things I had still exist, and I can take joy in the ability I have to steer the bike, mobilize myself through spacetime.

Am I lost?  No.  I have always been "lost", I know now that I just am.

Economies of Time

Do you ever think about how every morning you’re waking up a day closer to death?

I’m not trying to be morbid, or even depressing.  The inevitability of life’s termination surely provides enough fodder for angsty middle-school philosophers, but if educated adults allow ourselves to suffer the same pitfalls, then clearly the vast fortunes we pissed away on higher education have failed us.

So, rather than bemoan the fact we all must die, let’s look at the positives: we all have some number of days left to live.  We can’t know the number, so lets call it x.  Tomorrow, we’re at x-1.

What does that mean for day “x-1”?  Well, it’s supply and demand.  Let’s call demand for life constant here, foregoing the examples of those who choose to take their own.  Supply has just gone down, which pushes the price or value of the remaining days up incrementally.

So take today, it’s a Tuesday and because it’s around 9:30am most of my acquaintances will have pulled themselves from their beds several hours ago, put on presentable clothes and commuted to where they sit, now, at a desk.  Those who were spared such routine are likely sound asleep for the next few hours, until their alarms rouse them toward uniforms and labor.

In a world where every day of your life is more precious, is this the right behavior?  Doesn’t it leave a bitter taste that today’s toil is incrementally more wasteful than yesterdays?

Look around.  Are you happy? Are you fulfilled?  Is this what you want?

Say you wanted something that wasn’t in your current realm of physical experience.  I don’t know, you want to see Morocco or surf in Costa Rica, maybe it's as simple as bringing someone you care about further into your life.  Every day you’re missing a bit more of your chance, and every day the cost of your inaction grows.  This is your life, and every second is more valuable than the last.  Now I don’t even know if this is a pep-talk for you or for me, but it stands to reason that if you want something, you ought to say “fuck it” and just go do it.