WASTING TIME

Back in the days of teaching college freshmen to write essays so they could communicate with the written word in other classes and--with perseverance--graduate and even, perhaps, get a real job . . . as I say, back in those days, I had a wonderful mentor who recommended a particular textbook that I practically devoured. Lots of wonderful ideas--tons of examples from writers who knew what they were doing--meaty essays for dissection and consumption. . . .

One suggested topic was this:

• Take a vice and make it into a virtue.
  

Translate "vice" into "something lots of people think is unacceptable behavior."

That's what I'm going to do today--take the (often seen) negative concept "Wasting Time" and see if I can refocus our thinking to make it a citizen in good standing.

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My sense of wasting time is influenced--as I suppose it was for many of you readers--by my parents. If I was thinking about something, I was seen to be idle or doing nothing. Thus, I was chastised for wasting time when I could be doing something.

If I was doing something but not speedily, I was wasting time. After all, when that "something" was finished, I could move on to "something else."

Learning these fine distinctions, and others, was a long set of lessons known as Trial and Error. (Mostly error.)

I tried--really and truly--I tried to figure it out. But always there was something that just couldn't become clear.

Many years later, I began to get a glimmer--I was wasting something precious . . . Time. That meant, Time was to be considered worth preserving. Worth having around for a long time. To reinforce this idea, I heard "Waste not, want not." That one I got pretty quickly. Okay, if I don't waste Time, then I won't find myself in a state of want (old-fashioned expression for "lack").

As an aside--you notice that none of these discoveries came in a hurry. Go back three paragraphs--"long set of lessons"--that's what this became. Through most of childhood. And sometimes into adulthood. As I say, long.

Somewhere along the line I began to question; my thinking ran something like this:

• If Time is not to be wasted, then . . . where does it go?
• How do I keep it from disappearing?
• Does it keep accumulating? Stacking up in a silo somewhere, or a warehouse, or in an old trunk in the attic?
• And most important of all: Do I ever get to use it, all this stored-up Time?

Burning questions, I'm sure you'll agree.

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Looking at the subject through the lens of years lived, I can now see the fallacies sticking out all over the place.

The whole thing isn't literal. Isn't concrete. Time itself is a man-made concept. (Don't send a flock of emails telling me that isn't true. I'll agree it might not be true, but I believe it, so for me, it is true.)

Time is considered a measurable entity--nothing to be held in the hand, except as a watch or clock that measures Time can be held. The phrase "Time on my hands" was never meant to be taken literally.

And though it may be measurable, Time as we know it isn't finite. I never know how much of it I have to work with--have I used up most of "my Time" here on the planet? Is that the issue with "wasting" Time, fearing we'll run out?

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Now take "Wasting"--we all know we shouldn't waste our natural resources, our money, our food. But Time? 

Here's my forever, #1, Best-in-Show question: What happens if we do waste Time?

This measurable entity, this abstraction, this man-made concept--let's suppose it is possible to waste it. Do Time Police show up at the door, demanding entry to discover what I did with the Time I wasted? Will I be charged, tried, and perhaps convicted as a Time Waster? (Anyone know what the penalty is for that?)

Before you get worried, let me tell you what I believe happens. Ready?

"Wasting Time" is one of the ways we allow our creative selves room to work. 

• Artists "see" their subjects--on paper or canvas, in marble, in clay or bronze or silver or fibers.
• Composers "hear" their subjects--in the rustle of leaves or horns honking on a city street or water trickling or rushing or bursting its confinement.
• Writers "feel" the emotions they write about.
• Cooks "taste" in their minds as well as their mouths.
• Woodworkers, carvers, knitters, quilters--all "feel" the texture or strength or beauty of their materials.
• Scientists of all kinds look and think and write--and then share their ideas, think some more, experiment . . . .
• Teachers spend thinking time working out ways to express difficult concepts.

And so many more creatives go about their creative business while doing other chores and tasks.

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Those of us who been subjected to the discipline of "Don't Waste Time!" have received a wonderful gift. Ready for this? We have been trained to multi-task. Yes, I know some of us are born with that ability. But if you weren't, and you were trying to live out your parents' teachings, you have learned to do two (or more) things at once: While you're doing something that's on the adult's approved list, you were also working out the dance steps, or the quilt pattern, or the way the roof fits onto the little shed, or what color to use when you paint the daffodils?

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Waste Time? By all means! You never know what you might invent or think up or turn out if you once let your creative self go whole hog. Try it!

Until next time,

Blessings

Thursday's Child