the minute (and the mountain)

"I am always fighting for the next

minute," I tell my wife.

then she begins to tell me

how mistaken I am.

wives have a way of not

believing what their husbands

tell them,

the minute is a very sacred

thing.

I have fought for each one since my

childhood.

I continue to fight for each one.

I have never been bored or

at a loss what to do next.

even when I do nothing,

I am utilizing my time.

why people must go to

amusement parks or movies

or sit in front of tv sets

or work crossword puzzles

or go to picnics

or visit relatives

or travel

or do most of the things

they do

is beyond me.

they mutilate minutes,

hours,

days,

lifetimes.

they have no idea of how

precious is a

minute.

I fight to realize the essence

of my time.

this doesn't mean that

I can't relax

and take an hour off

but it must be

my choosing

to fight for each minute is to

fight for what is possible within

yourself,

so that your life and your death

will not be like

theirs.

be not like them

and you will

survive.

minute by

minute.

-Bukowski

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The whole carpe-ing our diem thing seems so ridiculously cliche I almost don't want to comment on things. But besides flying into dangerous us-vs-them territory, Bukowski points something out here that I kinda don't want to miss. How much time do we spend just waiting for the next thing to happen? Time is a precious commodity (not to use such language, but it's true). We watch tv, do crossword puzzles, fill up our time with time-fillers. The obvious question is what could we be doing instead of this, not just anticipating, but actually filling the minutes with things, deliberately. Instead of anticipating the next thing, to fill up the minutes with things worth doing in and of themselves. Admiteedly, Bukowski seems incredibly pretentious(perhaps just reading Bukowski seems incredibly pretentious as well)--and clearly not caring about the lives of the people around him--but the idea of using every minute is kinda captivating.

[That being said, I have incredibly fond memories of going to the movies with friends and family, doing crossword puzzles with the same, seeing my relatives, I think picnics are AWESOME, and I'm pretty sure I'm in some kind of travel mode at the moment--so who is he, who am I, to say that any one moment is more precious than the next?? Perhaps it's in the way that we enjoy and treasure the minutes, rather than the task of what it is we're doing, that could be important]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm also currently reading the characteristically cliche (for the stereotypical stuff white people like type), Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Pirsig, for his part, has ideas about this, too--

"Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rocks looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are the things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow."

But maybe the anticipation makes that singular moment, when the top of the mountain is attained, that much better, that much more incredible. When the entire time your focus is on the peak, the peak becomes even more than that, even more transcendent. Could this be? Or could it be that when the collection of minutes before the peak, in the growing on the way up, combine together along with the moment at the peak, that is the more transcendent experience? (And who's to say "transcendence" is the point, anyways?)

Perhaps to figure this out, I should go to a peak this weekend. Oh wait, I am! Stahl peak, here I come, pretentious philosophies and all. (Though I seem to lying in anticipation of said peak, and in this minute, not considering the minute at hand, but the ones in the future...hmmm. We'll see, I guess.)