Post by Seth Asathi on Jun 17, 2006 21:14:49 GMT -5
The purpose of this thread is to state philisophical views, and thoughts on those views. If you disagree, that's fine, have a reason for it and keep it polite. I do not want this thread to turn into flaming, and I do not want it to cause problems. Discussion, debate and intelligent conversations of philisophical topics are encouraged.
~ My thoughts on life, and time ~
Time is money, people...
Boredom is a worthless currency, why is it so often the price we pay to get what we want?
Consider the start of your life as though it were a paycheck you had recieved. The pay is time. You have only so much of it to spend. That is to say, we are all given a finite existance.
In this time we are given, we can do anything. Nothing is impossible, though certain things may be more difficult to do than others.
Everything takes time. Everything we do exists in the realm of time.
Everything we do has a certain quantitative value. That measure of value being seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades, centuries... and while in this context it applies primarily to our individual lives, sometimes groups of people will spend their time on larger projects, often covering more time than any one person has to give.
Each of us has certain things we absolutely must do, these things take time as well, and can be given a value.
That in mind, here are a few mundane tasks given value.
(Note that these are measured according to my habits and may not reflect anyone elses invested time in similar day to day tasks.)
Preparing a meal - Value: 10-30 minutes /meal
Bathing and personal grooming - 15-25 minutes /day
physical training - 35 minutes/day
making coffee - 5 minutes/ day
So if I prepare two meals, bathe once, get some exercise, and make coffee, I've spent between 75 minutes, and 125 minutes in one day. One, maybe two hours of my time. To me, that seems pretty valuable.
It is obvious that action costs time. But thought and emotion take time too. Not as exclusively as action because while we can not physically be in two places at once, we can have a plethora of thoughts filling the same time, and mixed emotions about almost anything.
Anger is an interesting emotion in these, because it tends to block out other thought and emotion. Many people focus their energy on it, thus time is more or less filled by anger. What makes it more interesting is that time feels like it moves more quickly while we're angry. We want to get somewhere quickly so we focus on how fast time's going by and how late we are. We are angry and don't notice how much time has gone by while we sit and think about what it is that has us angry....
Sorrow is also interesting. Depression makes things feel like they've slowed down. A matter of a few hours could feel like an eternity...
Here's another way of looking at those things... Think of anger as a manifestation of passion, skewed and warped, but we still feel it very strongly. Compare it to being in the arms of a lover, time will pass without us noticing it. We are too focused on what we feel to care about the time spent.
Now think of sorrow as a manifestation of pain. Ever have to hold on to something incredibly hot? Maybe a hot potato or something you can't just put down? Each second just seems to be an eternity because it is painful, we spend that time focused on how much time has gone by and how agonizing that time has been... it seems to take longer because we are focused on it all the more.
So if you spend an hour angry it can feel like a matter of only a few minutes... but if you spend it in sorrow it could feel like the entire day...
These have value, that is to say, cost.... anger cost an hour of my day, sorrow cost an hour of my day. I didn't gain anything from that time spent. Nothing good came of it, so my time, in essence is a loss.
With that in mind ... I leave you with something you can quote me on...
Life is too short to spend in anger, too long to spend in misery. ~Seth Asathi To'Alis