Living Expanses

Living Expanses
A semi-regular accounting of Christopher J. Arndt

Friday, September 26, 2003

It's 1:14 AM on Friday. We are 1 hour into a new day. We are more than an hour into a new day. The new day isn't so different from the old one. The difference between Thursday and Friday is reduced to one hour's difference. What difference can an hour makw. Primarily the difference is symbolic.

Because it is a new day the expectations are different. Whatever was left undone on the old day remains undone. The purpose of today, unlike yesterday, is to complete whatever new tasks befall us, to correct the mistakes of yesterday and those days before and to finish yesterday's unfinished tasks.

As a new day begins we marvel and breathe in air we consider fresh. It is not yesterday's air in our minds as it may be in fact. Today's actions lead to tomorrow's consequences. Rather the moments of today are the consquences of the actions of yesterday. Decisions, choices are reflected in the factors that stand now. We consider each day a new genesis, but this is purely symoblic, an illusion cast by healthy sleep.

In fact the new day does not begin because the calendar date has changed; that's merely an idea used to keep us sane and to keep us orderly. The new day begins because we deliberately ended the old day. Sleep is a funvtion of recuperation shaped and programmed by a loving God meant to conserve our energies. We sleep so as not to burn out mentally or physically. This aspect of human operation is meant to allow us to recharge our energies and to preserve our health. Each new day we awake from this portion of our cycle and we realize that what occurred before is over. We now have the consequences of previous actions and new decisions to make. Our life as we live it today is directly related and perhaps even descended from how we lived it yesterday, but thanks to our sleep it is not the same course of action.

The gap creates a period in time in which we do not merely react but actually ponder previous events and future events. Each new day brings new opportunities and suddenly we are able to grasp each moment in linear time with a different clarity than previous.

I don't know how much sense this makes. As Friday begins I have a new set of expectations. There are new sets of expectations set in front of me and set for me. As much as these can be unreasonable for having been laid out for me today as opposed to yesterday it does make sense. I haven't accomplished them yesterday. I shall sleep and a new day shall begin for me. I will awake and attempt to recover as best I can from all previous ordeals and trials. I shall succeed and cope and then will branch out on what makes that one day unique from all the rest.

We've seperated our time into days and hours and such based on measured events and precise divisions thereof. The day is the rotation of our planet. The year is the revolution of our planet around our sun. The month is the revolution of our moon around our planet. All is approximate. It takes 365.25 rotations of the earth to revolve around the sun. Or rather it takes the equevelent time. It's merely measured by cosmological coincidence. Approximately thirty rotations of our planet is a month. We place great signifiance in each individual month, in each individual space of time. During these points of time we accomplish things of varying significance. The point is that we measure time in order to gauge our actions and the distance between each one. Our actions often are meaured by how long it takes or fast it takes. Our skills are measured by speed but the epic nature of the task is often judged by how long it took to be accomplished. The reason we place such great import in the measurement of time is that we place great value in what we accomplish, especially in relationship to what else we have accomplished, or more relevently what we have yet to accomplish. There is even the comparison to what we may never accomplish.

What we do not accomplish is only important in light of aspirations. Aspirations are goals. Goals are proof that man has some awareness of the future. A goal is an example of a deliberate nature. A goal is an example of desire. A goal is a task or achievement that remains unaccomplished yet within one's own personal track of possible or probable outcomes. If we can do it it is a goal. If we cannot it is a mere fantasy. An aspiration is a fantasy but connotatively it's typically something that's possible yet not probable.

As we aspire to meet certain ideals we realize that somethings cannot come true and will not come true. It's only important because at one point we believed that they may have an impact on our lives. What doesn't occur has the most impact because someone bothered to consider did not happen. Alternatives are inherent to the nature of decision. The alternative is the impossible now. It is what could have happened but didn't and what decision could have been made but cannot be unmade and then remade different.

What oftens happens is that what really happened did not match up with what we wanted to happen.

The reason each day and each smaller period of time is held for such value is simply that we as mortal human beings have so few of them. That makes them precious.

Scarcity creates value. That is a lesson of basic economics. The second lesson is that value is created by desire. Desire is fueled often by denial. That is not economics; that is human nature.

Christians believe that the life we live today here on Earth as corporeal beings is merely a precursor to an eternal existence in Heaven. Consequently while our lives may be valuable, that value is arbitrary. The scarcity of time on earth doesn't make them so valuable as these moments are worth nothing compared to a single one of the moments in Heaven. Ironically there will be infinite moments to hold and experience in Heaven.

Secular beings don't have that luxury. What they believe fuels their desperation. They know what they have is scarce, but they don't always attribute the proper value to each moment in their resepctive lives.

Today is Friday. It took forty-three minutes to write this. We are now one hour and 57 minutes into the day.

posted by Chris Arndt | 1:58 AM