And now, after a day painted brown with cups of coffee, I have time to write. Alas, it’s already about to end, and yet, I still have work to do. But then, there is always work to do. If I have learned anything from this practice in the few years I have written day after day, or at least tried to, it is this that there are always things to do, always life to live, always a task or a chore undone, delayed perpetually like a promise unkept. There are always things like these, but what of it?
I reckon all lives are filled with the never-ending stream of opportunity regardless of the industriousness of the person living said life. And you have two ways to go about this. You could cry all of us a river about how it never ends, or you could sit with your head down, with your eyes peeled, with your hands aching, and do the damn thing. I am one of the strongest believers in the latter. And I take my life as seriously as my work, and my writing as seriously as my life. And each request, each chore is also carried with the same seriousness as I would something a manager would ask me to do. After all, what are relationships, if not jobs? And I mean that with utmost respect and sheer seriousness.
When we are asked to get a loaf of bread on our way to somewhere, we must pay this task its due attention and do it. We must get the bread. We must also listen when a friend wants to talk. We must always be there in all possible ways. Anything less than this is the blatant disregard of the potential imbibed in all of us simply by the virtue of being alive. There is absolutely no excuse if one is of adequate fitness both mentally and physically, and only in severe debilitation of one or the other should we let ourselves fall short of the glorious responsibility of being a person. Everything else, when I notice it in others, is the unabashed frittering away of figurative gold. Shameful. At least, this is what I believe in.
And I carry this thought with me at all times, like a pocket watch reminding someone to be on time, ticking away reliably and ceasing only when their life has ceased.