Onion Cap

I had a week off over the past week.  Today was the first day of “work” I’ve had for 9 days.  Nine days off it a row!  It’s enough to get away and forget for a bit what I do every day.  Get a little distance, see the bigger picture, and all that.

This is common practice in European countries.  Here in the good old USA, we believe in working until you drop, that it is somehow admirable to work every day of your life for at least 16 hours a day, just to show how tough you are, or perhaps how dedicated. I admit I have been a victim of this ideology.

But no more.  I’ll work my butt off, and will go toe to toe with anyone for stamina at work – for a couple months.  But then I’m taking off – at least a week – to get away and forget about it.  It is immeasurably refreshing.

Duh.  Oh, that I would have been this enlightened years ago.

People in any historical time have had the tendency to think that they live in unique times, which is of course true; we always live in unique times.  Can there be a time more unique, more significant, more consequential, than any other time?

Oh, you say, what about now! We think we are living in very important times now.  Especially 2010.  Just think of the things that are going on: global warming, overpopulation, digital global communication, rising (or falling) standards of living, a conservative wave crashing upon the shores of Congress.  It all seems pretty important and consequential, but is it more so than usual?

Maybe the world is actually ending.  I saw a billboard along the freeway the other day declaring that we are in the end times.  The sign of course directed me to a website.  Think of it, websites about the end times; just a few years ago, that would not have been possible.  Apocalyptic visions provide an extra layer of urgency to any time, which is why we’ve been having these end-of-the-world visions for as long as there has been a written history.  Nothing gets our juices flowing like a good, old apocalypse.

Thank goodness we find other ways than apocalypse to feel the urgency of time, because if we ever had an actual apocalypse, well, that would be it.  Holidays, on the other hand, give us a countdown we can live through.  Holidays remind us of change by being traditional.  We seek to reconstruct and relive the holiday of our memories as we anticipate and finally land on the next holiday; suddenly the day arrives, and we can’t help but notice that we got older, the people we love got older, and lives and jobs and families changed.  This sense of passing, of changing, creates a sense of urgency, of feeling, of significance, of the necessity of now-ness.

Although I am thankful for the illusion of chronocentrism which gives me a sense of significance and importance, I am more thankful for how the awareness of this illusion allows me to pierce through it for just a moment and see that all we have is now, all we have is each other, and that’s the only way it’s ever been.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The word is in from the feds: BP Gulf Oil Spill 2010 is the worst oil spill ever. Four million barrels of oil has gone missing in the Gulf of Mexico. The other million or so was captured by BP skimmers or burned off.  Perhaps the four million barrels were eaten by micro-organisms?  If they were dispersed, where were they dispersed to?

The political spill has just begun.  Who is to blame?  Who should have known better?  What happened to the oil?  Are the government estimates correct?  Has BP paid its bills?  Why does the name Haliburton ring a bell?

What could we have done with four million barrels of oil rather than spill it?

How many barrels of oil does it take to screw in a lightbulb?