Resolutions

Of all the traditions we follow, New Year's Resolutions is possibly one of my favorite. Though it frequently ends up being silly, and consequently derided, I still like it, because it's one of the few traditions that tells you to seriously examine your habits and values. Few people seem to do this regularly, so it's nice our culture gives them an invitation to, even if most of the resolutions they make aren't followed through upon.
These aren't all of my resolutions, but they are resolutions none the less.

1. Eat cake. Enjoy the cake.
2. Make something beautiful.
3. Make wind chimes. Leave them in interesting places.
4. Think.
5. Draw with color more often.
6. Crochet a Party Escort Submission Position doll.

Should be a good year.

Time and the Lack of It

Lately time has been moving at an increasingly rapid rate. By "lately", I mean within the past two or three years, because, as I mentioned, time has been moving increasingly fast. It used to be, two or three years was such a long time. In two or three years, the whole world would change. Now, on some level, I feel as though two or three years is forever ago, and yet, it's not. It feels close. It feels as if no time has gone by at all. If we extrapolate time's current acceleration, old age will seem like a blink of the eye. Though it might be nice for my years as a decrepit, senescent being to pass quickly, I still think I'll want my last days to be long enough to enjoy.

I wonder if the reason days seem shorter when you're older is because you are familiar with most things you encounter, and thus your brain filters out most of your day automatically, like how one no longer notices their own car air freshener, or fails to see the dust that coats their lampshades and curios. So, perhaps the old adage "stop and smell the roses" has more importance than we typically give to over-quoted cliches. By appreciating the little things in life, we stop and take notice of them, and remember them, and give our days more substance. By allowing our brains to filter less, we are giving ourselves time. We should brand this remarkable new therapy as a wholly natural, pain-free alternative that will, from your view point, increase your life span.

They say bad times go by slower than good times because when you're happy you don't watch the clock, but when you're miserable or upset, you hang on every minute. However, there is something lacking in this hypothesis because when you are dreading something, you also count the minutes, but they slip through your fingers like teflon-coated sand, and when you're eagerly anticipating something, you count the days and they drag on. And on. The more you dread, the faster time moves, and the more you expect, the slower it crawls.
I think the conclusion we can draw from this phenomenon is that time is a fickle bastard and a sadistic misanthropist. For example, another instance of its cruel influence on the world is how it gives you plenty of time when you're young and can't appreciate it, and takes it all away when you're old and desperately need it.

I didn't realize it was such a universal phenomena, how time speeds up as you gain years, but talking to the adults I know, they all remember the long summers of childhood, and now they never have enough time to do all that needs to be done. No one tells you about this as a kid, how time speeds up inexorably. They'll tell you about the homework and taxes and love but they never tell you about time, not until you figure it out yourself. Granted, though, I'm not certain that losing time is one of the things that kids understand. It's very hard to imagine winter nights when you're stuck in the heat of summer.

Everyone loves to pretend that time is some grand, immutable thing, consistently plodding along, second by second. It's not, though. It changes. We all know that even clocks can't measure it accurately, like how they slow to a standstill during the last five minutes of class. In truth, it's silly of us to think they would be able to measure time, because, after all, clocks move through time, too. They can't measure it because they're part of it. It's not like they're impartial. Clocks are perfidious bastards like that, like a bribed judge and jury together. They make you think they're unbiased, but really, time has been handing them money out in back all along.

Really, time has been conspiring against us. We should impeach it. And smash all the clocks.

Benjamin, Part II

I wrote a piano part for the song! I'm rather proud of it, mostly because I didn't know I could write songs on the piano and yet somehow did. It makes me very happy inside, and I should probably try to start composing/improvising in keys other than C, but hey, it's a start, right?
I love being able to do things.

I think probably the most impressive part of this video, though, is the part where I managed to balance the camera on a brass reading lamp.

Valediction

     We hate endings.

     As a people, as individuals, we all hate endings. We mourn a little when the movie is over and we have to come back to the world. At the end of dinner, we reach for the last bite of cake but it's already gone. As children, we hate going to bed. As adults, we loathe waking up. Endings are all around us, and we never get used to them. We never come to grips with the fact that things can leave. Things can go, and they will never come back.

     I've noticed we're especially bad at coping with losing time. Things will come and go. We lose phones, money, friends, but when we lose eras of our lives, that's when it hits us the worst. When we think back to childhood, we get teary eyed. We lament the end of a bus ride where we spoke to a friend about life and death and love, and we wish we could stay in the uncomfortable grey seats just to keep that time in our minds. When the end of a time is so plainly marked, like with graduation, the loss hits us all at once like the death of a loved one. We realize that this time is over. It's at an end, and we can never come back. Linear as we are, we can only move forward in time. We can look in the rear view mirror, but we can never turn around.

     I've been thinking about astronauts a lot lately. Songs about flying and leaving got stuck in my head like butterflies in a screen door, and I haven't been able to get them out. I've been dreaming about the future, and what we're all leaving to do. We're flying in the name of knowledge, and glory, and science. We're dispersing; we're going to far moons and high stars and though we all want to come back some day, we know that we can't. We'll never come back to this time. We'll be flying near the speed of light and we'll feel like we're staying the same and time is passing normally, but then we'll come back to Houston and generations will have passed and our siblings will be old and the walls will be repainted. And it will hit us just how long we've been gone, and how far we've traveled. We'll have gone to Andromeda and back and nothing, nothing will be the same.

     So, now, astronauts, now we say farewell to Houston. We've loved this time we've had with you; we've hated this time we've had with you, but it has been our time, and we always, always, mourn the loss of a time. The water stained ceilings, the risible podium wars, the obscene amounts of chicken for lunch in the past three months, the essays we had to write on our last weekend here, the dead fish in the lawn, the field trips, the flowers and integrals and green felt soccer balls. Noticing as the benches got too small and the days got shorter and people left us. We realized we could touch the ceiling if we jumped and when we jumped we were told to keep our feet on the ground and stop being taller than everyone else. Weirdly enough, in the end, we felt a strange camaraderie. Whatever we thought all throughout this time, as we got ready to part forever, we suddenly felt close. We'd been together all along but had never really noticed. Whatever we say, we'll miss this time. We may not want to return, but we will miss it, because we always mourn the passing of time. We will always mourn endings.

     We may mourn endings, but we celebrate beginnings, and I tell you that we can never have a beginning without an end. Without destruction, we could never have creation. They're inseparable. Destroy a star, a new one forms from the dust. Cut down the trees to build a house. Burn down the house to grow a forest. End time to start the world anew.

     So when we mourn the end of time, let us always remember that time keeps going, never steady but always present. We will keep the memory, but we have to go and we have to start a new time, so we will have something to celebrate. If we were all scared of heights, we would never get to the stars. If we are all scared of the unknown, it will never be known. So, time must end...but time must always begin.

     Let's fly. 

As an Astronaut

Under the lotus moon, holes like seeds, we flew. We had nothing to our name, we had no one left to blame. We had nothing left to do. So we flew.
And it was lonely, and we cried, and we fought, and we lied, to each other and to ourselves. But we had nothing left to hide. Lies can only get you so far. You need truth and stories to get you the rest of the way to the moon.
Sometimes, when we stared into the dark, we swore we could see the horizon and the rising sun. But there was no horizon, and there would never be one again. Not while we flew. Never again.