Well, here we are again – another birthday.

Last year I wrote a post called something similar, except it was 20454 days in the brackets (link to that post here).  That was the number of days I had lived to that point.  The number in the brackets of this post is the days I have left (if I live to be 85).

This is an important number for me.  Yes, I may be obsessed with death – but, after all, it is the one inevitability; you can’t count taxes anymore considering most multinational companies don’t pay any!   Funnily I’ve written so many times about ‘The Merchants of Misery’ and bullshit politicians who make us buy, make us spend and then blame us that paying taxes now is almost like paying for shit entertainment and being unable to get a refund…!!!

Death is a sad and depressing thing to think about on your Birthday – probably, but, it reminds me that the days we do have are limited.  We spend most of our days not thinking it could be our last, or that we only have a few left – we spend most of our days living as if we are going to live forever.  I personally have never met any immortals, or for that matter heard of any existing, so, the grim reaper will eventually come knocking for all of us….

It doesn’t mean that our life is pointless – just like it doesn’t mean our life has to be important to be well lived – actually for most of us our lives are not very important to the big scheme of things other than we are a small grain of sand in an endless beach of sand, which is somehow connected to all the other grains of sand, even if it is just for the briefest of moments.

I can’t wait for tomorrow when my Birthday will be over and I can get on with waiting for the next one….  What the…!!!!   Really.  Is waiting and hoping for tomorrow more important than living this day, this hour, this second.  Then again I don’t want today to end because there is nothing really to look forward to tomorrow, just work and the normal routine, but, I am excited about my holiday later in the year…. What the….!!!!  Anyway, I am glad that I got through yesterday and now I just need a day to get over it and regret just about everything I did, or didn’t do which would have made it better; if there was just a time machine, I would…  What the….. fuck!!!!

Yesterday and/or tomorrow are our obsessions!

Regretting and anticipating are time travellers – in our heads.

Isn’t my counting down the days to my death just a little macarbe and a little sad?  Probably; unless, it is used as a guidepost to the realisation that each of those days can be precious, the best day of my life, the last day… so, therefore I have to make sure I don’t waste it!

Two things about those days:

1. Time is an illusion created by us with clocks and calendars – in reality there is only NOW.  Yesterday, the last hour, the last second, are gone and can’t be changed; tomorrow is imaginary, an illusion created in our minds about what might happen.
2. Time, on the other hand is the only commodity that we can’t trade, yet it is the only real commodity that we have.  We get an uncertain amount, and it runs out when we least expect it.

Let’s just change our ‘time commodity’ counting system – I’ll call seconds dollars.  You are given a certain amount of dollars and told to go and shop and buy anything you like.  The trick is you never know when the dollars on your shopping spree are going to run out.  Now some of us are going to grab as much as we can, irrespective of what it is, if we need it, or actually if we really even want it, because we are just grabbing before the money runs out.  Some of us are going to casually walk around the isles, picking the best, experiencing the joy of the shop without the pressure of having to earn what we spend; and then there are the ones that are never really aware of what dollars are but they buy stuff anyway which they didn’t know why they bought it other than it was what they were told to buy to make them happy…. they they die, just like all the rest.

So, most of us complain that we are cash poor, never enough money – we’ll work harder and make more… and the miracle of the corruption of capitalism, is you can….  and you can buy more stuff…. and your stuff will make you happy?

But, not so your ‘time dollars’ – there are only so many and you can’t work harder, refinance or get a loan… or even borrow a few dollars from a mate…

There are only so many and you don’t know how many… and then you die, and the kids fight over your stuff that made you happy.

Happy Birthday – it was now, which was a few days ago…. and that moment will never come again, that day will never come again.  Thanks for all the Facebook messages, I haven’t read them yet, I appreciate that Facebook reminded you (as most of you have never wished me Happy Birthday before Facebook) and you had to press a few keys, on the day of my Birthday – thanks.  But, the phone calls I received, and the two cards that people posted to me kept me busy all day, in the now, in the real world, spending my time dollars wisely – I only have 10221 left.

PS:  On your Birthday, check the mail box – then you will know I spent a dollar for you…