Don't Make of Time An Enemy

A large part of our social conditioning, is the making of time into an enemy -- and never a friend and ally.  If we've learned anything over the course of human history, it is that time always wins -- but there is no reason that one has to be on the other side.  Time is not the enemy unless one insists on making it so -- and most people do, despite knowing that time will always win.

There's really no real reason why one has to run a mile in less than 5 minutes, or lift a heavy weight all at once.  Most often, it is enough that one just gets there -- on their own power, on their own devices, or lifts the heavy load, bit by bit -- until the job is done.  Usually, there are no bonus points, for lifting the full load all at once -- except that one may get to lift an even heavier load the next time -- and the next, until finally, one breaks down.

What pays off -- is persistence and persisting -- more than the haste, because it is well known, that haste seldom lasts but is quickly extinguished, in one way or another.  It has no history of enduring -- when times are good and bad -- but are good as long as the going is  good, and stops when it is not, and is easily discouraged and distracted -- onto something new, until that too loses its luster.  That pattern of behavior is not dependable or enduring, which is what one is looking for, in determining reliability, security and peace of mind -- that enables one to move forward on that base.

Yet many condition themselves, to live in that way.  On days that they want to, they may show up; on days that they don't want to, on the flimsiest of excuses, they won't show up, and it is up to you to guess, when they will and when they won't -- and thereby live on those terms, which is not good enough, even for one's own sake.

That is the treatment and reliability many give to themselves -- their health and their well-being, and so not surprisingly, they have no reserve of riches to draw upon -- when they need them.  Their cupboards are always bare -- and kept that way, so nobody else can access them either -- as the communal abundance everyone contributes to. 

That is the environment and supporting structure that every individual operates in.  It can be optimal and abundant, or it can be a vast desert in which survival is tenuous at all times.  That is what one is building -- besides their own personal resources.  One moves forward, but is also blazing a trail for those who come after them, and building a road to make it easy for the next person, and not just going their won way, oblivious to all the others.  The next person through, may only be themselves.

In this way, people make it easier for themselves, or their lives are always hard, and never gets easier.  They're always starting, from where they started the last time, and so, never moving ahead -- and think that life is nothing but endless repetition, always starting from nothing -- instead of building on what one left off.  That is the constructive mentality of those who build a little each day, as opposed to the destructive mindset of releasing as much energy at once in an uncontrollable rage -- leaving nothing behind and intact, as their only expression of power.  It is power expressed all at once -- but nothing that can be sustained over time, built on, added to, and refined.

That is the regard most have towards their own bodies -- that it is a ticking time bomb waiting to fall apart, and so they're not going to put any energy and time into it, to ensure that it won't.  They're abandoning ship, at the first sign of trouble.  But each has the one body they were born with -- and it makes a huge difference, the care and maintenance they give to it, far down the road.  That makes the greatest difference of all.

It may seem like a small thing -- that one has to care for their own body, before they can care for anything els because it is that body, that will ultimately carry out everything they do.  There is no separation between the thought and the doing.  There is no actor, apart from the action.  One thinks one can do, because they are that person.  Everything else is a delusion --that falls apart in time.

Is time cruel in that way?  Only to the delusions -- but not to the truth.  For the truth, time proves its worth -- even to still be doing it, until the day one dies.  All the others, will long have been forgotten, and fallen by.  It is the countless things one no longer does -- because they cannot be sustained in one's present condition -- and that is the test of any reality.  It doesn't matter that one lifted 500 lbs.,  50 years ago -- if one cannot lift 5 lbs presently, nor no longer thinks to try.  It is more meaningful to move the 5 lbs now, just as it was 50 years ago -- because the 500 lbs, did not make time stand still, and simply repeat as a memory.

So the question one asks is not, what is the most one can do -- and never do anything again?, but what is the least one can do, that ensures one can do the same all the days of one's life?  That is what one wants to do -- all the days of one's life.