I haven’t written for a while (the post Better an Avatar was written a while ago and I only just posted it recently).  The reason I haven’t written is that I have been living.

I had to feed the cat.
I had to pay my bills.
I had to go to that party.
I had to go to sport.
I had to do some shopping – to get stuff.
I had to organise stuff – to go with the stuff I bought.
I had to write a ‘to do’ list.
I had a meeting.

But, I had been living like that all my life.  I was going through the motions, doing stuff and getting stuff done.

Then the other day I was driving to do stuff and noticed that the road was full of other people driving to do their stuff.  One of them cut me off and I cut one of them off.  I got to where I was going and didn’t remember getting there, and then went hone and didn’t remember why it had been so important to just come from the place I had come from: but was glad it was done, as I had other stuff to do.

I watched TV.

I got in the car the next day and did the same stuff all over again.

I stopped at the lights today and realised that we were all stopped at the lights:

Oblivious

Why is it when we are young the days are short and the years long; and as we get older the days are long and the years short….

Does our obliviousness to the world mean that eventually we go into oblivion oblivious.  Do we go into oblivion wondering when those short days got long and those long years got short.  Do we look back on those days and years and lament their passing or look to tomorrow and welcome the time – anytime – long or short, that we may have left.  Do we see the person we were yesterday and miss them, or do we notice the person we are today and plan for them to be better tomorrow.

(I have so much stuff to do tomorrow – do I really have time to be a better man?)

I can live my life oblivious and still be happy….
Probably happier than worrying about everything….
What are all these things, (what things?), things that I should worry about….?

Maybe they aren’t?  Maybe when I talked about my sphere of concern (see my post Better Authority Responsibility, Concern) expanding exponentially with every news cast and reaction to every advertisement to buy my next necessary possession, I realise that all the things are just things.  The main focus of my life is things and I don’t even know what the things are, and I most definitely don’t notice them.

My circle of concern has become so large that I can’t even see it and therefore are concerned about everything and nothing.

My concern about everything manifests itself in me noticing nothing – I am oblivious.

I was so oblivious that I was oblivious to being oblivious.

But, in that brief moment that you may notice your life, you have to find a way to capture it, to prolong it; prolong it, so that moment becomes your life.

And…. this is not the first time it has happened.  I have just realised, noticed actually, that I wrote a post called Better off Oblivious about a year ago.  Perhaps our lives really are in seasons and at the moment the leaves are falling off and I am seeing the forrest for the first time – although it’s not the first time; it just seems that way.

Do we prolong the moments in our life to such an extent that they only ever become…. well, now.  Is there actually any other reality other than now.  I can’t live in the past.  I can’t live in the future.  It literally only leaves now.

If I am oblivious, I think what I am actually doing is being oblivious to now.  How can that be.

I am here.
It is now.
How can I not notice?

I think by noticing those oblivious around me, I should not be oblivious to me around them.  Do I see them, do they see me.  Are we too busy collecting all the stuff we can’t take with us to notice the stuff that is with us everyday – that stuff being me, now.

I don’t think I can help switching on autopilot when the road is straight and there aren’t too many bumps.  But what about that unexpected wind sheer or the motorist pulling out from the side street – does it switch of the autopilot or just make me pay attention to avoid my own death.  Is doing nothing other than avoiding death through slight corrections on the auto pilot actually a sort of walking death – are we all Zombies and don’t actually notice because we are all Zombies.  Are we undertaking normal Zombie behaviour and eating our own brains with advertising and the messages from the merchants of misery (the Media) because that is just what Zombies do.  Even if you notice you are a Zombie can you stop being one.

I think so.

As I sit on my death bed (that would be a living death bed if I was a Zombie!) do I feel the bed or do I feel those long years and those short days.  Is my last day the only day that I have actually lived because all those long years now seem so short and this last short day will shortly be gone forever and me with it.

If that day was today, would I be greeting oblivion, or heaven, or valhalla, or whatever it is you think you’re going to next, completely unaware as to where I am going or where I have actually been.  Probably.

So, I might just live this moment.  Because that’s all there really is.

(Fuck, I forgot to feed the cat!)