As time permits

Time is one of the weird things. We learn early on to tell time. To get things done on time. To be productive and manage time wisely.

Since I retired from 22 years in IT in the Silly Icon valley I learned a thing or two about time. For so many years I carved it up into multi million dollar cloud projects. Governed people and effort and delivery with it. Created elaborate schedules and reports.

You know what I found out? It’s not real. None of it is. We just suborn our lives to it because somewhere we are told that we must be on time, must deliver and be responsible in a timely fashion. Must adhere to requirements and schedules and milestones. I call BS on it all. We don’t have a thing to do with time. Because it ain’t real. We just love the idea of math. Add and subtract. Years and days. Coming up and gone.

Instead we should find joy in the moments of life. Forget whether it’s well or ill spent. What you think is bad could turn for the good. What you find was a wonderful pursuit turns to BS. So what is the metric then? The measurement of it all?

Simple friends. There is none. Life is supremely indifferent if you March to time’s drum. I believe like the Buddhist monk told me once,

The primary goal of life is happiness and joy

How does one find that with watches ticking on wrists? With clocks popping and grinding? With lists ever multiplying? Simple again. We don’t. We just suffer. We live allotted lives. We manage and defer and decide. New time apps. New ways to enslave time. Hahahaha. Funny really that we would think we can do that.

Having clarity of moments

Lately I have had basic questions about what I’m doing. Why? With whom. I have felt both happy and sad at things in the last month. Maybe keyed to when we moved. Now I find I am not finding that happiness and joy so much. I feel more like Thoreau’s men leading lives of quiet desperation.

I started the blog again to just speak with my tiny retired guy voice. To find the things worthy or not of saying and then writing them. To admit feeling disillusioned and sad hurts. To find questions of what I took for granted hurts. It is always hard I think finding someone to love after decades of no one. We get used to a status quo of life. Suddenly another person is inserted. Is important. It seems even more so when that person is from a different culture.

So I just take breaks each day. Stop for a iced latte along the river. Nurse myself a bit. Practice a little acceptance or understanding. Write here and there.

Just take my words as they are. Don’t add or subtract meaning. I speak the retired guys voice in me. Sometimes haunted. Other times joyous. Now feeling sad. Finding the spark. The happiness in me has proven to be challenging. Time does not fix me when I break. What does is the walking. The yoga. The meditation.

And the latte at Domo. See you later.