Time and Its Relationship to the Moment
July 1st. It doesn't quite seem right, I haven't straightened up the patio from our Memorial Day celebration yet. I'm not even sure I have been home for more than a week or so since then.
I am trying to figure out why time seems to be accelerating right now. Does it have everything to do with this Mayan calendar/2012 prediction of the end of time? Is the world clock sprinting ahead with a last burst of energy before stopping dead? Or is it because the span of time I have been experiencing time itself gets greater each year? Not to reduce everything to a stage analogy (even though this blog is called the World's a Stage) but it is like my show. When I was first doing it at the Atlantic Theatre it seemed that I was on stage for a very long time. I felt every moment of every second and knew I had completed a show when I walked off.
In Laguna about the time I was aware of being on stage, I was moving into the finale. It seemed that the show started and was over so quickly it just couldn't have been almost two hours had past. That is just because I know it, the flow is not a struggle but an easy skate. Maybe that is why life time is going so fast now.
I have been through it and this existence is not as much a struggle, nor does it burn with the passionate idealism it did in my 20's. I saw a tee shirt on the ship that read: "Been there, Done that, and already forgot it." That perspective can only be reached the long way 'round. I'm no longer trying to prove something to myself, just enjoy it. Live every moment because experience has taught me that nothing except happiness is really important.
What ever it is. Happy midsummer to everyone. I am very tired from my trip, travel time does not seem to be getting any faster, but I am looking forward to writing again and just staying in the happiness of the moment.
As you were,
Jay
What a lovely essay, Jay.
ReplyDeleteThat acceleration of time is something I've noticed the last number of years as well. I think, as we get older, time is perceived as moving faster (Remember when you were a child and the time from Christmas to Christmas was an eon?). It's no wonder the elderly look so perplexed; things must just be whizzing by.
I've also experienced that show-moving-quickly thing. It's part of the one man show experience (Doesn't happen so much with full-cast shows)...and it comes from knowing your script cold.
When I first start a long show, I am terrified that I won't remember everything and won't be able to fill the time. By the time I've done it for awhile, that is no longer a concern. I can relax into it and it seems the time just flies. The fear of "going up" is gone.
This is not to say we're phoning it in. It has simply become natural...like breathing...and we can experience it more deeply, and take much deeper breaths.
Well...that's a much longer comment than anybody needs.
Glad to have you back home.