Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? Chicago 1969

I went to town today to get the mail.  While I was driving I was listening to Chicago.  Their song Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? came on.  Besides having a really long title, it is a pretty good song.  It got me to thinking though about time and how we make use of it in our lives.

We start off not having any concept of time at all except for what our tummies tell us it is time for.  Supper!  An then we are disappointed because it is milk........ahhhgiiinnn!  Come on Mom something different would be nice.  You know something like pudding?

Then it is governed by daylight and darkness and the monsters under our beds.  Yep you know the ones that make that scary noise when your trying to sleep.  That rattle and whistling noise from their nose.  Then there is the loud booms when it rains.  That's the really scary part when I am trying to sleep.  Wakes me up when it shakes the bed.

Then the seasons.  You know, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring.  Or if you were raised in the South, HOT!, Not so Hot, Kinda Cool, and Here Comes the HOT! Again.  Not complaining you know but can some one besides the menopausal grandmothers in the house be in charge of the thermostat for once.

Then we become aware of  minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, and centuries all proceeding at the pace of an arthritic snail, or trying to break the downhill flow record of a hurricane powered rain drop in the middle of a tornado.  Depending on whether you're expecting something good or in dread of something bad coming up, like pudding for supper again.

Then there is grandparent time.  You know, how time creeps by between visits, and yesterday-you-were-a-new-born-being-held-by-me-in-the-hospital-for-the-first-time-and-today-you-are-graduating-college.  If you don't get that it's okay, it is reserved for parents and grandparents and even we that are those don't fully get it either.  I think it is somewhere around Warp 10 or 11.

Some where along in there you find out your dying and time changes once again.  It becomes the most precious of all commodities, to be used wisely, conservatively, and slowly.  Oh so slowly.  You don't know how much you have and you really don't know how fast you're spending it, but you are so painfully aware of how you spend each and every second.  You have to decide to spend it in doing something that truly makes you happy, whatever that is, or you can sit numb and uncaring, in a near catatonic state, making all sad and miserable, achieving nothing of value, like happiness and good memories.

I know what time is now.  Am I going to share with you that answer?  Nope.  Part of each person's journey is discovery, and discovering what time really is, is one of the most important parts of that journey.  Does it change you?  I think it does in a way.  The discovery sloughs off the conventional thinking that, like barnacles on a pier, cover up what is really important and allows us to freely use what we have.  Wisely.  Slowly.

Honey! will you get away from that thermostat and fix me something to eat, and it better not be pudding again either!  Oh sorry not you.

Until next time.......................


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCVhoyEKYt4  (enjoy!)