Obsessions with the time loss

I've been known to sit staring at a clock in order not to miss a moment of time, but what kind of time is that? I always feel like time is slipping through my fingers. I think it's a traditional mid-life crisis element to fear the passing of time and the inevitable sense of loss for unaccomplished goals. Putting aside the fact that I'm not quite yet at the mid-life state, I think there is something to that for myself. I used to have the reoccurring dream that I would die mysteriously on my thirtieth birthday. As the angst of adolescence wore on, the idea became a kind of mantra to me; that I had until my thirty to accomplish whatever it was I felt I was bound here to this Earth for, and for a long time the idea actually drove me to manically try to converge on every possibility I could find for meaningfulness in life. I went through sweeping lifestyle changes with the snap of a finger...one minute a hippie, the next a yuppie, then a punk, then blue collar, then collegiate, and on. I wanted a mass of life experience to work with as an author, and to see spinning through my head as I choke on my birthday cake. Now that the ominous birthday is no more than a month away, I'm forced to think about this premonition again. It hasn't been in my head much since my early twenties, but as I approach the magic number, I feel a slight sense of the kind of loss that goes with the experience of bi-polar like symptoms. If you've ever had those manic times when sleep is unnecessary and working at anything with ferocious intensity is the norm, then the normal levels of excitement and concentration pale by comparison. On the flip side are the crushing depressions that level yr ability to accomplish anything. During those times, it's a victory just to get out of bed, so there are swaths of life that consist of virtually nothing. It can be a hard life to reflect on without the cautious eye of a philosopher, which is why I tend to be philosophic about it.
Ultimately, what I saying is that I'm nowhere near to the place I intend to get with my life, and thirty years was just not enough to get there. I hope my early dreams and premonitions turn out to be foolishness, but in this last month leading up to the moment of truth, it's hard not to think back to a time when I was sure I wouldn't even make it this far.

Say it clean with clear stated intent

There has never been a time in my life when I have been able to escape on any level from the existential questions of being and nothingness to be just a little glib about the problem. I can remember clearly the long and ultimately unsatisfying first argument about the nature of the universe and the vagueness of our representations. Maybe you had a similar one. It started with the question why and ended eventually with 'Just because, now leave me alone yr giving me a headache'. It was very similar to the first argument about the nature of social conventions, which had a lot to do with hair cuts and new shoes. I was unquestionably not in favor of either, and although I've softened a little with age, I have to say my initial pre-adolescent instincts were not so far off the mark. I mean really, what is the point?
I guess that is the point...that human meanings even if ascribed to universal forces or creators are just our own little digressions and obsessions. On a slight digression of my own and on the question of god's intentions and whatnot, if you think you've got it straight from the horse's mouth let us not forget the lessons learned from the book of Job. God almighty and similar constructs are just way too omni for us to really wrap our skulls around. I mean what is omniscience really like or omnibenevolence for that matter? How about omnipotence? If you think we can do anything but indicate these concepts with some simple signifiers, then you've probably already stormed off in a huff anyway. No, I kid because I love, really.
All miserably failed attempts at humor aside, my own personal life has been filled with these kinds of wonderings, and I've never been able to escape them to the land of milk and honey known in some circles as ignorance; a quite blissful state I'm told. Regardless, it never was for me. Mostly it was a source of great anxiety about what the unknown might have in store for little old me, and then on the flip side it is always kind of fun to be a smarty pants. I'm being a little glib, but that's still a good if vague representation of the process. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that even those things that seem uncomfortable or unmanagable or even maybe like a waste of time (read: ponderous notions about the nature of life) are too me the core of what life is about. I wonder sometimes how far out of the mainstream that idea really is?

Trash talk on the basis of nothing

I think the self-referential, megalomanical nature of blogging leads us bloggers into a stance of bullish optimism about the rightness and importance of our own opinions. I make no judgements about the lunacy or lack thereof in this approach. I merely point out a noticable trend in the machine, but maybe it's just me. I never can tell anymore.
The truth is, at least for me, I do feel some of the importance of putting it out there seeping into what was supposed to be a light-hearted and one off kind of approach to the whole blogging thing. I find myself editing and composing myself, which I think is silly. That's not what I'm trying to do. Mostly I'm just looking for a corner of the world to call my own to feel safe and happy in; Is that so much to ask?

Cynical realism with a secret heart

The boldness of a noncynical approach to any of the modern afflictions of our weary hearts is in itself a striking issue. How is it that the unshorn optimism required of whole-hearted aspiration and care for the future world seems so pase and even a little naive? It's a scary thing to realize that the practicalities of the situation are that we are superfuct, and we might as well come to grips with it and get on with our bad selves; a sad and unsavory statement if ever there was one. I, myself, exist in a bi-polar rubberband that vears between an extreme idealism and the selfsame cynicism I have voiced in that last sentence, so I know the arguments on both sides.
In any science fiction-like discussion about the possibilities of future existence my father and I might have, I always have to remind him that the whole conversation is predicated on the idea that we excuse the low likelihood of survival for spaceship Earth, and yet the title 'The Audacity of Hope' was all the reason he needed to dislike Obama. I, of course, had to read 2/3 of the book before I got hip to what a slavish pandering the whole project was, especially after the insightfulness of his first book. It was such a shame. Anyway, there is value, I think, in both edges, and the future requires from us cynical realism with a secret heart if we want to make it past the probability of self-destruction we're staring down the barrel of.

Yeti stalking in the jungles of Post-Modernism

What is the bashing recklessness of tackhammered atonement that springs achingly spryly from the mounted pillars of Northward folly? Why is the glibbish tone of tortured souls a truth serum to the youth of our modern antiquity? Where are the lavish answers that open mountaintops for the call to prayer that will resound through the valleys of the brain and unlock the bolted doorstops of the mind of humanity?
There is a code of conduct among the wild ambrosian drinkers of whom I count myself one, and it consists of one thing and one thing only: that in all of the dozy embraces occurring throughout the millenias, we must be present. So stay your mind to the foolish flinging dizziness that drowns us all in a rancorous sweat of nausea, and bring yrself back from the brink of the void to be here in the moment, now.
Is it not an obligation to the cornerstone foundations of this world that we now, in this moment, find our way into the future of our history and stop with all the foolishness? I cannot express my grief and worry for the way forward and the needlethreading acrobatics that will be required for the survival of our kind on this planet. But anyway...