Life Isn't a Numbers Game
We use the terms seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, months and years to define time, trying to measure the intangible, the infinite and the inevitable, which is our journey to death. Our final tally is marked by our first and last day of consciousness. But these artificial markers of time are just empty gestures, giving the illusion of coherence to the winding, unexpected, unanticipated and wholely random events of life. We use numbers as markers because it gives us a sense that our lives exist in an understandable context. But we have no control and time, at least as we know it, doesn’t exist at all. It’s just all of us grasping at air, looking for meaning in a breeze.
I believe the only way to truly measure life is in the brief, fleeting, inspired and nasty moments of love, pain and clarity that shape our memories and pysche in ways the calendars and clocks never will. Does it matter what year you first made love? What matters is how it felt and how it excited or frustrated you. Being humilated infront of your friends in a schoolyard fight isn’t memorable because of our exact age; its about how that humiliation seeps into your DNA and that horrible moment (and all the other horrible moments to come) affect the way you saw yourself.
Numbers won’t save you and shouldn’t define you. The internalized moments in your life that matter. Numbers are just the externalized record keeping of bean counters, bill collectors and folks trapped in recurring payment plans. That ain’t life. That’s accounting.