Chris Jepson: Where I spend my time

“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.” —Henry David Thoreau

Some suggest that the study of philosophy is to prepare one to die. Gracefully, I might add. A rational rejoinder might be, “No, Chris, such inquiry is to facilitate the graceful life.” Ah, nuance. One and the same, perhaps, much as Thalia and Melpomene are the balancing faces of drama, of life.

I’ve concluded that what the world (life) has quite enough of is sorrow. There is pain a-plenty for all. Few walk into a bar and order a round of sorrow for the house. Yet that is what is served up “fresh” daily. Sorrow is relentless. Decay and death is the human condition and depending on the individual, at some point our mental tickers all start “tocking,” and the literal countdown is recognized for the inevitable finality it represents. Arguably, this is when grace matters most.

If you have enough (life’s necessities) and are at all reflective, at some point in your life you reasonably ask, “How do I want to spend my time?” I phrase it a little differently, “How do I want to spend my mind?” This is where the insidious nature of sorrow intervenes; it consumes your mind. You can be experiencing a most joyful moment and the smallest prompt will redirect your revelry to dark, maddening thoughts of disappointment, disheartenment or despair. Sorrow, by any other name. Oh, and as so many understand, there are much more sorrowful events in life than death.

And, who among us wants to dock their boat very long at that port? Much of life is a redirect. What’s the expression? When handed a lemon, make lemonade out of it. Vomit. My natural inclination is to slap (vigorously resisted) such simplistic sentiments out of the purveyor. But I do understand the necessity for such an outlook. I do.

Sorrow is not the only unavoidable intrusion that saps one’s time, one’s mind. Pettifoggery. Banality. Insipidness. Depending on your tolerance, any number of life’s everyday experiences will and do regularly intrude upon your mind, yet as duly noted, “time is fleeting” (please read Shakespeare’s Sonnet 15).

So where shall one ultimately spend her mind? I find pleasure (diversion) in art (all forms). Beauty. And words.

Topics I will explore in upcoming columns: Are redneck zombies worse than Manhattan zombies?; Bridges I have crossed; Waiter! Waiter! I’ll have a round of apologies; Is a religion different than what is done in its name?; Dangley-Down-Parts; The “take” I took; Cloning one’s self; Prosperity gospel; My son applying to be the Nightshift Jesus; Life — it’s a receipt book that keeps getting thinner; Meet your maker party — location/time to be announced; Reason — what are you going to place above it?; Babies — better than dawgs sometimes; Life goes on while you’re dying; The double-bubbler; Schwanz & Tucker — Winter Park lawyers and, I have no schedule but I do have an agenda.

Another topic is all-time great lines husbands have given wives. Remember when Homer’s Odysseus returned home after 10 years (following the fall of Troy) to his wife, Penelope. He had spent seven of those 10 years on an island with the exquisite goddess Calypso. How well would that explanation go today? Is that an illustration of unfaithful but loyal?

Perhaps Odysseus merely explained he was fishing. In the stream of life.