Time Considered

“Time is the longest distance between two places.”

― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie 

It’s been some time since I checked in. I’ve no excuse other than time somehow gets away from me. I ought to do what I ought. And I do. It’s just that what that is seems to drift. These days that seems to be crashing out on a couch with a book, reading the innumerable titles on my shelves that I’ve collected over the years, with every intention that they be read within the next short while when I bought them, but realise now, in fact, that the pace at which I purchased them exceeded the pace I could ever read them.

Honestly, I ought to cease buying books. I promise myself just that often. Then I find myself killing time in our local bookstore while my wife browses clothing, or I drift into an independent (or monstrous chain store) while on holiday (sometimes because I have no other notion of how to occupy my idle hours) and discover I’ve another two or four or eight titles in tow, haunting my expectations. It does haunt me. I’ve likely not enough time to read what I own anymore.

I’ve likely not enough time to master another of my pursuits – music – either, no matter how much time I invest in it. It haunts me that I might have begun too late in life to excel at the instruments I’ve picked up: guitar, clarinet, and sax (to varying success, depending on how much time I’ve spent practicing each, and whether each has lain fallow, for whatever reason). There are days I delight in what skill I now have with them. And there are days I know that I am hopelessly inadequate, and perhaps always will be. Most musicians believe this, I imagine, regardless how good they are; but in my case I know this to be true. My memory is not what it once was, so recall can be spotty. My sight reading is not rapid, either. I understand that I need more time to decipher what in inscribed on the page than others that I’m acquainted with, and can only play what I read cold when it is not laborious.

I ought to post to my blogs more regularly, too. But doing so takes time, more time than I wish to commit. This blog staggers on, in fits and starts, picked up after I had all but set it aside, years ago. My other blog, Greyhawk Musings, has languished. It may for a time. It may forever. For those not in the know, it is a D&D blog, where I collected and ordered the scattered lore of AD&D’s original setting (Greyhawk) into easily digested subjects. I enjoyed the meditative immersion of that research; but I also understood, as I met and interacted with other fans of that setting, that I was nowhere near as invested in it as I ought to be, as they most certainly were. And never would be. It was a labour of love for them, and merely a curiosity for me. I understood then that I did not belong in their sphere, regardless our shared pursuit. I have greater interest in Classical Studies, something I discovered a love of in university (and through my original involvement in D&D). Ancient Greece and Rome and their story fascinate me, far more than any invented world ever could.

Indeed, I have a great interest in story. It matters not in what form: oral, myth, film, television serials, fiction or non-fiction. The telling of stories is a human thing, our oldest pastime. It is no wonder then that we invest as much time in the telling and listening of them.

It is no wonder then that I enjoy writing (actually, it’s very much a wonder why anyone does, but that’s a thesis in its breadth and depth). It matters not whether anyone witnesses it. I wish they would, though. I’ve always been a storyteller. I can make a short story long. And have. Longtime readers of this blog already know that I have written more than these blogposts. I’ve written short stories and two novels. None were accepted for publication, regardless the praise I sometimes received from those publishers who bothered to read what I submitted. There’s a Catch-22 quality to why that is. Those rejections discouraged my pursuing that pleasure further for quite some time; until I began musing on my own life some years ago, and began jotting down vignettes about it. I’m reminded of Charles Dickens did very much the same thing his early Sketches. I understand that writers write. Whether anyone reads what they write is another matter, altogether. So, I do. And gather thoughts on what I might mine from those vignettes.

And wonder whether I might have enough time to do something about them.

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”
― Charles Darwin, The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin