This is a photograph of my high school English teacher, Miz Pat Mitchell.

Miz Mitchell, as I recall, seemed to think well of me in high school (which made her a minority of one - not even I agreed with her, at the time).  The comments that I got from yesterday's dissertation on pronoun evolution reminded me of my high-school years - my friend Alan was also one of Miz Mitchell's favorites. (okay - I shouldn't call myself one of her "favorites". Let's say, instead, that it seemed to me that she managed to put up with me easier than some of her colleagues :)

Now, having said that, I've recently learned from Alan that Miz Mitchell found me, in her words, "infuriating".  I can say, with all honesty, that I don't remember intending to be "infuriating", but it is entirely possible that such an outcome was, indeed, exactly what I was trying to achieve. I'd like to say something here like "not consciously, of course", but I can't do so; for one thing, I don't remember. And for another thing, I'm not sure that I was conscious during that time of my life.

I was talking with my therapist the other day, and the subject at hand was my running out of gas last Thursday. I was trying to explain to her that I don't get gasoline until I absolutely have to; I think I may have started speaking from the perspective of somebody who loses a lot of time to his commute, but the truth is that I've been this way for years.

It's pretty simple - I don't get gasoline until I HAVE to get gasoline. It's pretty simple - If I wait until I absolutely have to buy gasoline, then I will spend the least amount of time at the gas pumps, and more time doing everything else. For instance - if I were to fill up when I hit 1/4 tank, then for every three tanksfull, I'd fill up four times. But if I wait until it's empty, then I'll only fill up THREE times for three tanksfull.

It takes me a long time to pull off the road, put the card into the machine, undo the cap - and then replace everything and drive away. Even though the amount of time spent pumping is the same for 4 stops versus 3 stops, it's all of that overhead that kills me.

The point is that I simply can't stand to waste time - to waste life.

        "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of." - Benjamin Franklin

I tend to think of time as being used or wasted - and there's not much gray area in that, for me. If I'm not doing something that I intend to be doing - if I'm not acting consciously - then I tend to think of whatever is going on as wasted time (everytime I have those thoughts, I hear the Eagles telling me that "...it wasn't really wasted time", but then, the Eagles also enjoyed the warm smell of colitas, so I'm not going to ask their opinion on how to live my life, thankyouverymuch :)

Now, that doesn't mean that I have to be busy - in fact, quite often my time is decidely, and intentionally, unbusy. For instance, there's a half-hour to an hour every morning that is spent reading, praying and meditating; whenever I find myself hiding from a feeling, then I have to sit and take time and feel my feelings; and, quite often, I find myself having to take a nap because I am tired. These times are not wasted time - they are necessary parts of life, and they help to make other parts of life better.

For instance - I use watching movies and sailing as "enforced rest" - time that I am not going to be working or working out or doing anything physically or mentally difficult. If I'm sitting there watching a DVD, or if I'm sitting on my sailboat, then I'm resting - however, doing this is a conscious choice. It is different (for me) from (say) turning on the tube and channel surfing, and then finding out that ten years have passed and I missed out on a bunch of life.
(That's the yawning abyss that is waiting for me if I don't remain conscious).

The Buddhists talk about "mindfulness", and there may be some element of that in what I'm talking about here. Sometimes, when I wake up and get my list of daily instructions from God, the list will include"watch a movie" or "go sailing" or "take a nap".  But I've noticed that it never says "hang around on the street corner" or "eat a full bag of chips while watching Gilligan's Island reruns".

When I was in high school (and for some years thereafter) I seemed to move from distraction to distraction; now I am (at least, I hope I am) engaged in an active, conscious process of living.

I suspect that Miz Mitchell wouldn't be nearly as infuriated with me today as she was back then :)