Time

This last week has been a whirlwind.  Although I typically get up early in the morning, this week I've had to get up, AND get going every day.  In the middle of all of this, I could not help but think more about time as a concept, than I usually do.  I was reminded of the 2011 movie "In Time."  The basic premise of this movie was a future state in which time had become currency, making "time" the way people are paid, and the way that people buy things.  In a strange way, I guess that is really the way things are for us today, with the things that we do either adding to or depleting the time reserve we have.  The movie has a visible timer that tells each person how long they have. While we don't have that, we do know that when we are out of time, we cease to exist.

Wow, I have to tell you that for an old woodworker from Southeast Iowa that was pretty deep.  I had to stop and get a cup of coffee.  But now, fully armed with something to drink, I can move forward again.

I remember someone telling me there is research which indicates that the speed we experience time actually does change over our life span.  When we are young, everything is new and as we create new memories that makes the experience go slower.  This really seems to make some sense to me. I remember summers when I was young that seemed to go on forever.  I remember wishing that we could go back to school because I hadn't seen my friends in such a long time.  Time really did seem to go slower.  The research goes on to indicate that in the middle part of our lives memories compress since we are generally doing the same thing over and over (like work) and that there are fewer new memories being created.  The mind "speeds" through this, giving us the illusion that time is going faster.  As with early memories, I can remember sitting on the porch at a friend's house in Kansas City talking about the fact that I felt like I had lost the 1980's and part of the 1990's.  Very quickly and intelligently, Barb pointed out to me that I was busy working on a career, and quite honestly, trying to save a company.  We failed, just by the way.

At this point, we come to the problem part of this whole theory about time and the speed at which we experience it.  The theory goes on to hold out that as we reach a more mature age, somehow the mind "knows" that we are getting closer to the end of our lives. It focuses more on the things that are happening as though each experience might be the last time that we are doing it.  So....what to do with this?  I know that as I think about this last week, there are only a handful of things that had enough impact to be truly memorable, even now, just a few days later.  I really think that the thing that I need to add to my To-Do list is to spend more time focusing on the things that I do as if they are the last time I might do them.

When we lived in Kansas City, we had an acquaintance who had been on a boat going around the Cape of Good Hope when the boat capsized.  At that point, Bill truly believed that he might be at the end of his life.  Fortunately, the boat righted itself and they completed the trip safely.  One thing I remember about Bill is that he was a great story teller. When he told stories, it was almost as if he were reliving it.  I wonder now if this is because he always felt that he had truly been given a second chance at life.

I am not sure about this, but I am picking up the gauntlet. I want to make sure my mind knows that I want to be fully engaged all of the time, and that I want to remember everything.  So, when we are around each other in the next few days and months, and I seem to be concentrating more than usual ... I am.  I am going to work diligently on filing away more memories and discarding fewer of them.  My goal is to have fewer whirlwind weeks and more memorable experiences.  

Have a great weekend.

How Did We Survive?

In the last week, I read something about safety for our children. It was about swing seats or children's toys, I am not sure which and it struck me that we are lucky our civilization survived.  I mean, think about it, we had Giant Slides and monkey bars, and swing seats made out of boards.  On top of all of that, many of us remember when seat belts weren't even an option in cars and "car seats" for infants actually hung over the back of the seat and had a steering wheel for the child to play with.  We shouldn't have survived any of this.  I want to make sure that nobody misunderstands me here: I am all for children, and all of us being safe, but sometimes you have to wonder if we haven't crossed the line between safe and silly.  I have to admit, some of the most joyous times we had as children were in the wild games of chase on the monkey bars, and yes, often someone ended up in tears from a fall, but I do not remember a serious injury.

My generation used to be able to have fun with two tin cans and a piece of string.  Do kids still play telephone?  Now, I have to admit that there were probably some things that we did that would not be considered smart at this point, and were probably really questionable then.  Some of the things that fall under this category are bottle rocket fights, shooting each other with BB guns (but not from close range) and of course, what about Lawn Darts?  Who would ever think that throwing a weighted, pointed piece of steel into the air and waiting for it to come back down wasn't a good idea?  You have to wonder when they pitched that one at the toy company, who was thinking on that day.  In fact, I have to admit that I have never even seen a set of lawn darts in a garage sale.  This is probably a pretty good indication there was universal consensus that these were a bad idea.

So where am I going today?  Last week I celebrated the birthday of my daughter, which means I no longer have teenagers in the family.  In the midst of this change it struck me that as diligently as we try to protect our children from all of the lawn darts of the world, we still have to send them out there to be on their own.  I had to ask myself if by protecting them in every way that I could, had I really prepared them for the world that they are going in to.  When we went into the world, we knew that a sharpened piece of steel thrown into the air would come back in a manner that could really hurt.  I hope that all of the children we have raised know that.  When I worked for Drake, I remember listening to the VP of Academics speaking to a group of parents at a Freshman orientation.  He had been asked how Drake could assure that this parent's pride and joy would not come to Drake and embrace all sorts of radical ideas.  I remember being glad that I didn't have to answer the question.  But in truly admirable fashion, he explained that if the parents had been educators, and not just providers, they had nothing to worry about and the children attending Drake would grow to be productive members of our society.  I also remember watching parents ask themselves that exact question as though it was not something they had ever considered.

At this point, I believe that I have been an educator for my children and that they are prepared to go out into the world and do great things.  But at the same time, I wonder if they may have missed out on some of the adventures of life because Sara and I were so busy keeping them safe.  There is no doubt that we did the job the best way that we knew how, but still at the end we send them out to tackle the world on their own.  I know they will do great, but over two decades of programming, I will continue to worry about both of them.  I doubt that this is any different than our parents felt, sending us off to cope with the world and worrying about us the whole time.  Time will tell.  In the midst of this though, look out if I ever have grandchildren.  We are going to do all sorts of activities that will get me labeled as the "fun" grandparent.  So...beware.

On the Toybox front, I actually opened an Etsy store this week.  There is only one item out there, yet but it would be my intention to increase my offering over time. It will be fun to let people see what I can make and what kind of quality I believe in.  Heck, maybe somewhere along the line I may even sell something.  Who knows.  Find me at http://www.etsy.com/shop/ToyboxWoodworking.