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Nov. 10th, 2018 05:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zinze I think, at various points of being younger, I felt like life is short and there's so much to do and there's this sense of rush. I think part of it is a college-application mindset of wanting to do impressive things young, and the way there's always forward momentum, from grade to grade, or even when you're in a contract job, approaching the not-too-distant end and the structure of that. But then, when you have an indefinite situation, it kind of feels like everything stops. There's possible promotion, I guess, but it's a hazier thing, not time-bound. So suddenly you're an adult and even when things are rushed at work, your life doesn't have a rush. Sure, you could die any time and you might not have done everything you wanted to do with your life, but also... you have the Rest Of Your Life. To do whatever you do.
I guess time just feels very different to me now. I feel guilty when I'm wasting a lot of time, but at the same time... there's kind of no consequences. (It doesn't feel good to look back and realize you didn't do much that feels interesting or productive in a given span of time, but it also doesn't matter. And maybe that guilt is a holdover.) Maybe that's what adulthood is, finding some pleasant ways to waste time. It's a little like my wandering month in Europe; I could spend all day getting to a random island only to spend far less time there and go back to where I was staying, because I had the time and only as many arbitrary goals as I set. Efficiency loses importance when time isn't a limiting factor.
Of course, time is always a limiting factor, but maybe it's like Kmart points. I don't have infinite Kmart points, and sometimes in a moment I want to order something and I don't have enough, but overall, I have more than enough Kmart points to get the things I want, and sometimes I have to really think of what it was that I wanted to get, because I have too many Kmart points and I don't want to waste them.
Time is an opportunity I don't want to waste. I remember what it's like to have all these things I'm excited to do and not enough time to do them. And time isn't something I can hoard like food or money. It's always spent, just with value judgments. I want to do cool things, I want to feel good about what I do, but I also don't want to waste time feeling guilty about time wasted or plans that don't work out. But I do want to figure out those first two.
I'm totally gonna make a playlist, aren't I.
I guess time just feels very different to me now. I feel guilty when I'm wasting a lot of time, but at the same time... there's kind of no consequences. (It doesn't feel good to look back and realize you didn't do much that feels interesting or productive in a given span of time, but it also doesn't matter. And maybe that guilt is a holdover.) Maybe that's what adulthood is, finding some pleasant ways to waste time. It's a little like my wandering month in Europe; I could spend all day getting to a random island only to spend far less time there and go back to where I was staying, because I had the time and only as many arbitrary goals as I set. Efficiency loses importance when time isn't a limiting factor.
Of course, time is always a limiting factor, but maybe it's like Kmart points. I don't have infinite Kmart points, and sometimes in a moment I want to order something and I don't have enough, but overall, I have more than enough Kmart points to get the things I want, and sometimes I have to really think of what it was that I wanted to get, because I have too many Kmart points and I don't want to waste them.
Time is an opportunity I don't want to waste. I remember what it's like to have all these things I'm excited to do and not enough time to do them. And time isn't something I can hoard like food or money. It's always spent, just with value judgments. I want to do cool things, I want to feel good about what I do, but I also don't want to waste time feeling guilty about time wasted or plans that don't work out. But I do want to figure out those first two.
I'm totally gonna make a playlist, aren't I.
