Time: 5 minutes become 5 ages

I haven't written in this thing since July...terrible. Well, short summary of events: took my GRE not once but TWICE (July & Oct), climbed Mt. Fuji (birthday), applied to UCSD & Monterey Institute (Oct, Nov, Dec), went to South Korea (Nov), went to India to visit my mom (Christmas, New Years), and I'm off to Nagano next weekend for a ski trip. Got into Monterey, waiting on UCSD, finished my FAFSA, and almost done with taxes...I feel like I need to be productive, I'm antsy. I started reading "One Piece" in Japanese...it rekindled some desire to learn Japanese and take the JLPT one last time b4 I leave. Kinda strange though, trying to get hella good at Japanese just before I leave...it's really just to buff up the resume and help with my career. At least the kids LOVE the fact I've been reading their favorite book, awesome conversation starter. We'll see if this will blossom into something. Anyway, I was inspired to write tonight not to provide you, the reader, a retelling of all the events since July. Instead I wanted to discuss, nay ramble, about an idea that popped into my head. Recently I have read Crime and Punishment, The 3 Muskateers, Papillon (so awesome), and now, Dostoevsky's The Idiot. Consequently, my mind has raced with ideas and, unfortunately, I have not put any of it into writing until now. So here goes, an attempt at free style writing and a train of thoughts.

Time. When do you really have the time to contemplate such a thing? And yet, it's so vital to be aware of how we're using our time, as it is, like anything, it's finite. With the coming of globalization (shout out to Mark), things have become faster around us...the internet, mobile phones, everything is accelerated. Thinking in retrospect, my four years in Los Angeles was a whirl wind..."gotta get that assignment done, gotta go to dragonboat practice, when is it going to be thursday so I can party, dammit it's sunday night, urrrggh I hate monday morning". Terrible examples but you get the jest: it was always one thing after the next. My time in Ikata has been a little slower but I've realized that I have fallen into a similar trap.

I lived for the weekend. My focus was always on the future.

Simple enough. Live in the present. "Take the time to smell the roses". Problem solved, what's the problem?
In all honesty, I don't think it's that easy. As young people, we chronically waste our time by fetishizing the future. Not to say messing around online is bad, you shouldn't be constantly productive...you'd burn yourself out. I just think there's a lack of awareness of how valuable our time is. Lemme talk about some of these ideas in more detail.

Who's familiar with the tv series, "Lost"? Well there's a scene from that show that really made an impression on me and what kind of person I wanted to be. One of the main characters, Sawyer, was reading a book while everyone else on the island was panicking, for one reason or another. Or perhaps it was when he was in a "others" camp, working in the 70s. I think it's the latter. Anyways, Jack asked Sawyer why he read every night. And he responded, and I paraphrase, "Winston Churchill used to read every night. He said it helped him make better decisions during the day. It made him a better leader. Jack, you always act on instinct but it's important to think before you act". And it hit me. Reading. When you're reading a book, you're the master of the literature, thoughts are constantly circulating in your head. Like anything, if you train yourself enough, it'll be habitual. And so by reading at night, you're able to stimulate your mind and make you more proactive with the world around you. By being able to piece things together faster, the world around you becomes slower. In contrast, watching television is non active. You're letting the storyline of show unfold before you, you're letting commercials market their products, you're letting all of this happen to you. And so, in turn, you become more passive, you let things happen to you; consequently, the world around you gets faster and uncontrollable...hectic. And this is how I feel time speeds up. Reading allows us train our minds to slow down time.

In Dostoevsky's The Idiot, Prince Myshkin recounts crossing paths with a former convict. The criminal was sentenced to death but at the last moments his execution was stopped. But before getting the pardon, the convict did something that intrigued me. He was told he had 5 more minutes to live. And so he segmented his time: 2 minutes to ask a question to a neighboring convict, 2 minutes to think by himself, and 1 minute to enjoy the surroundings. The last 5 minutes of his life and he had a plan on how to spend it. It's a morbid thought but what would any of us do in a similar situation. After getting the pardon the convict recalled that each minute felt like an age, that he lived 5 years within something as insignificant as 5 minutes. When you're given nothing else, you begin to treasure what little you do have. I suppose that's human nature. Unfortunately, the convict did not continue with this thought as he went back to his regular life. 5 minutes were once again, 5 minutes.

Does it take a traumatic incident to appreciate time or can we consciously make an effort in our daily life to enjoy every moment we have? Can we be that disciplined? Sure, we'll have days that suck, days we want to forget. But "every cloud has a silver lining". There has to be something, anything, within the course of your day that you can think, "wow, I'm pretty lucky". "Oh, that apple tasted good", "That girl over there is really FINE", "I really love my parents". Yes, it's forced optimism. But I'm starting to think it can be a helpful tactic to stop LIVING FOR THE WEEKEND. It'll become habitual...perhaps we can get a smile out of the smallest things...however insignificant. Why do this?

To combat the dreaded Monday Blues! "What's so bad about Monday? I hate Monday because it means the weekday and I have 5 more days until the weekend. What's so great about the weekend? I get to go out, drink, hang out with my friends. Here comes Monday again. Repeat." I admit it, I've thought about this quite a bit. I do this with hours in the day too, "Oh man, it's 2oclock, only 2 more hours until school's out!".

But what makes Monday or those 2 hours in the day any less important to your life? If you live for the weekend, you're living for 2 days out of 7...that's about 104 days out of 365. You're missing out on 261 days of your life, per year! Sure, you're living it, but the QUALITY of it goes to shit. Next thing you know, you've let the "best years of your life" pass. According to an Economist article I read, our lives are more U-shaped...that it's downhill for us from our 20s until age 46...and then it goes upwards until we're old and senile. Why? Apparently because young people tend to be ambitious and never satisfied with their situation whereas elderly people are, to be blunt, have accepted things and are anticipating their death. Going back to the convict example in The Idiot, older people realize their mortality and so they have a stronger appreciation for the smaller things in life. Don't get me wrong, ambition is good, it's vital. But it's crucial to be aware of how we spend our time. Don't put your head down and try to work, work, work...occasionally raise your head, take a breath in and appreciate what you have.

I will close this long thought with an analogy that I made when I was younger. I think life is a journey through the mountains. There are steep climbs, dangerous crevices and all sorts of obstacles preventing you from making your ultimate goal: the summit. But, once you've made it to the top, you don't stop there, you descend the mountain and go to your next challenge. Now, if you're working your ass off to get to peak to peak, shouldn't you try to enjoy the scenery around you? Take a moment to relax, put your backpack down and take a look at the magnificent view. Don't think, "Man, I just want to get to the peak..when I get to the peak, I can finally party, hang out with my friends". Instead, enjoy the climb, have an apple, check out that FINE girl, appreciate your family.

Now, all of this is only a thought, rambling really. But I firmly believe reading can make you a more assertive individual and, in doing so, you can control the environment you're in. If you can change your attitude to something positive every time, no matter what, can you imagine how much easier those Mondays will get? Take it one moment at a time and perhaps, just maybe, we can live 5 minutes like they were 5 ages.

Time to sleep.