I am always surprised to see some people demanding the time of others
and meeting a most obliging response. Both sides have in view the reason
for which the time is asked and neither regards the time itself—as if
nothing is being asked for and nothing given. They are trifling with
life’s most precious commodity, being deceived because it is an
intangible thing, not open to inspection and therefore reckoned very
cheap—in fact, almost without any value...
No one will bring back the years; no one will restore you to
yourself. Life will follow the path it began to take and will neither
reverse nor check its course. It will cause no commotion to remind you
of its swiftness, but glide on quietly. It will not lengthen itself for a
king’s command or a people’s favor. As it started out on its first day,
so it will run on, nowhere pausing or turning aside. What will be the
outcome? You have been preoccupied while life hastens on. Meanwhile
death will arrive, and you have no choice in making yourself available
for that.
Can anything be more idiotic than certain people who boast of their
foresight? They keep themselves officiously preoccupied in order to
improve their lives; they spend their lives in organizing their lives.
They direct their purposes with an eye to a distant future. But putting
things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it
comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest
obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses
today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning
what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you
straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately... And even if
you do grasp it, it will still flee. So you must match time’s swiftness
with your speed in using it, and you must drink quickly as though from a
rapid stream that will not always flow.
You can read more of the essay in the current issue of
Lapham's Quarterly.
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