Wednesday, May 24, 2006
tired of having too little time to feel.
i have been reduced to suffering the scattered attentions of only those few friends who can find the time to loan to me. how are they to see that it is indeed a sound investment? how are they to understand the passages time now flows through for those like me? and how am i to make time to explain such matters? i can barely interact with grown humans these days, much less make heads or tails of complex issues. when one is afforded the absolute minimum ammount of time what is one expected to do with it? what makes them happy i could only hope.
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3 comments:
if I was near I would offer to watch the kids a moment for you...
time does go by and now I have so much time, and try to remember to lend a hand to those who need it
- china
Um, dude, I'll see you on Saturday. Also, man, there is lots of time. One day you'll be forty, and it'll be like, "Well... probably another forty to go before I'm done."
the gabbos have it.
Time: illusive and illusion.
You are not the sum of your hours.
From "The Instruction Manual" by Julio Cortazar:
PREAMBLE TO THE INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO WIND A WATCH
Think of this: when they present you with a watch, they are gifting you with
a tiny flowering hell, a wreath of roses, a dungeon of air. They aren't
simply wishing the watch on you, and many more, and we hope it will last
you, it's a good grand, Swiss, seventeen rubies; they aren't just giving
you this minute stonecutter which will bind you by the wrist and walk along
with you. They are giving you - they don't know it, it's terrible that they
don't know it - they are gifting you with a new fragile and precarious piece
of yourself, something that's yours but not a part of your body, that you
have to strap to your body like your belt, like a tiny, furious bit of
something hanging onto your wrist. They gift you with the job of having to
wind it every day, an obligation to wind it, so that it goes on being a
watch, they gift you with the obsession of looking into jewelry-shop windows
to check the exact time, check the radio announcer, check the telephone
service. They give you the gift of fear, someone will steal it from you,
it'll fall on the street and get broken. They give you the gift of your
trademark and the assurance that it's a trademark better than others, they
gift you with the impulse to compare your watch with other watches. They
aren't giving you a watch, you are the gift, they are giving you yourself
for the watch's birthday.
INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO WIND A WATCH
Death stands there in the background, but don't be afraid. Hold the watch
down with one hand, take the stem in two fingers, and rotate it smoothly.
Now, another installment of time opens, trees spread their leaves, boats
run races, like a fan time continues filling with itself, and from that
burgeon of air, the breezes of earth, the shadow of a woman, the sweet smell
of bread.
What did you expect, what more did you want? Quickly, strap it to your
wrist, let it tick away in freedom, imitate it greedily. Fear will rust
all the rubies, everything that could happen to it and was forgotten is
about to corrode the watch's veins, cranking the cold blood with its tiny
rubies. And death is there in the background, we must run to arrive
beforehand and understand it's already unimportant.
___________________________
When you wind your way out to this side of the mountains again: drop me a line. We'll have a cup of coffee and talk of whatever suits the moment best.
-Amos
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