I spent a little time today raking the ocean of leaves on our property, something I’ve done with great reluctancy since we bought our home in November of 2019. The job of raking the blanket of leaves into large piles and eventually disposing them with numerous trips to the dump takes many hours. Too many to comfortably invest in a single day. So, I choose to spread it throughout several weeks, raking a little here, a little there.
Today, I had Andre 3000’s new album, New Blue Sun, to distract me from the monotony of reach, grab, pull and repeat that is cleaning up yard debris. In the end, I suppose this act is my own payment to the beauty the many trees bring during spring and summer. So, I try not to complain too much (I am learning).
New Blue Sun dropped Friday, November 17th. You can find it here on Spotify.
Earlier in the week, my wife sent me an interview with Andre 3000 on NPR (HERE), which gave notice to the release of his new album. Thanks to her, I was able to enjoy the meditative offerings from his new album, a hybrid of jazz and classical type soundscapes, as I spent my morning doing horse chores and raking leaves.
One track in particular, “That Night In Hawaii When I Turned Into A Panther And Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control…Sh*T Was Wild,” got me thinking about time. As an aside, in case it stood out to you, Andre 3000 talks about the length of the song titles from this album in the interview I linked above. In my opinion, this is the power of instrumental music, it’ll stir things from deep within. Instruments speak, and today the instruments in this song spoke of time.
But what about time?
Time seems to be this thing that many of us give a lot of weight to. I do. Although I am finding myself giving less and less emphasis to it, it still prevails on my mind.
What is time exactly?
A form of measurement?
A form of currency?
A commodity?
Is it valuable? Or not really?
I suppose an argument can be made that it is all of the above. At times it is a form of measurement. Other times it’s a currency and a commodity. Sometimes it is valuable and other times it is not.
Let’s examine it for a moment as a form of measurement. Generally, we look at our days as a series hour’s. Our week’s as a series of days. Our month’s as a series of weeks and our year’s as a series of months. All of which eventually compiles into the totality that is our lifetime.
How about we look at time as a currency. We often fill our days up with activities. Activities which essentially take up time. We conduct this push and pull where we examine the inputs (activities) in our day and try to sort out whether doing a certain something is worth our time. We exchange our time for an activity. A form of payment.
If you apply it in terms of a commodity, it becomes a deeply personal resource in which you decide to either keep to yourself or exchange with others. You reading this is essentially an exchange of your time as a commodity. And if you have made it this far, I thank you.
My relationship with time has been an interesting one. When I was younger, I wished I could speed up time. You know, become an “adult.” Get to the “important” shit. Then the “important” shit came, and I wished I had the ability to slow time down. Keep the earth from spinning so fast. Stop the years from moving. Then for me came parenthood, and if anything will provide you a gauge to the passing of time, it is in watching a child grow. Now, I have this little being who roams around our house, growing right before my eyes, hitting these evolutionary milestones that do one thing, call out and point to the passing of time.
It is now more than ever that I am grateful I have spent the recent nine years of my life learning to adopt the courage to change the things I can, relinquish my control and adopt radical acceptance.
How do these three things connect with time overall? Well, in my mind it is simple. Time you cannot control. This should be obvious. Yet, we often try. Complaining when a day goes by and all of a sudden, we “don’t have the time” to do that thing “we wanted to do.” My emphasis here is on what you do with your time, which you can (mostly) control.
We wake every day and are given the ability to exercise choice. For example, we face an instance where we get some solid quiet time. In this time, we can either read a few chapters from our book or watch a movie on Netflix. Both require an exchange of our time. One might bring deeper fulfillment than the other. My emphasis with this example is in adopting a sense of awareness when making a choice on what we do with our time. A conscious examination in our choices. With the above, I sometimes choose that Netflix movie (especially as of late) over reading my book. But I am learning to be ok with knowing it was my choice. Therefore, I have no room to ever complain about a lack of time when I am knowingly or willingly investing it in a certain area. If I ever get that feeling of “I don’t have enough time,” I then make an honest examination of how I am utilizing my time. Key word being HONEST (let’s be real here).
In terms of relinquishing control and adopting radical acceptance, my relationship with time has gotten easier because there are simply a multitude of things that I have ZERO control over. Furthermore, me spending ANY energy in trying to exercise control or apply emotion (mostly frustration) is completely fruitless. This has been a growth path for me. Still in progress. And most likely will always be in progress.
Two years ago, I wasn’t so great with the above. If I had planned time to do something and something came up which interfered with my planned time, I would lose my shit (let me be clear, this usually took place on the inside, but sometimes it would trickle out to those around me in my behavior). By nature, I like things orderly, I like things structured, I like things predictable. Anxiety would take over; frustration would dictate my behaviors. Why? Because I was clawing and gripping at control, trying with every single ounce to hold on, to white knuckle the situations in life and its circumstances. Although my path with this way of living started well before I became a parent, this has been my number one lesson with child rearing. Giving up my ability and desire to control. Because the further I get in this life the more I realize I CAN’T CONTROL SHIT. In the end, it’s far easier to relinquish control and accept than it is to try grasping at it.
So, I ask again: What is time?
Right now, time just is. It’s nothing more and its nothing less.
It just is.
Thank you for your TIME.
Please, leave me a comment. I love hearing from all of you reading this.
Much Love,
Aaron Klein
Cheers!
Dude! That album! I haven't listened to a song yet, but I heard that he had an aya experience in Hawaii . . . I'm not sure if that had any influence on the album or not, but I can't wait to give it a listen. Thanks for posting it here. And TIME is an interesting topic you bring up. I love what you have to say about it - that "time just is" and "I can't control shit!" Those two phrases can only come after you've radically accepted. I've been thinking a lot about time lately (and words, too) . . . and how diiferent our world would be if the concept of time was never introduced, or language and words for that matter? I imagine that language probably started a little like purring like a panther. Eventually, with our 'big' brains and lots of TIME, we figured out how to cultivate those purrs and sounds to create words that actually formed some meaning. I'm still trying to figure out my relationship with time ~ Fascinating stuff and thought provoking. Thank you.