It’s been a while. Time was cheap and abundant - now it is precious and hard to come by. When I do come across a chunk of it, empty and translucent, like a boulder of quartz suspended in mid-air, I want to just be in its numinous presence. I do not want to utilize it for some other task like it is some kind of common fuel.
Time which is untied to quotidian tasks is different and far superior to time which is tied down to the floor and whipped and disciplined and while it squirms and struggles like some beautiful infinite beast, you scream: “10 eggs, 1 kilo rice, fix the lights, call the plumber, oil the cupboard hinges.”
Sorry time. My relationship with you is changing. Now I must milk you to your last drop like the cow you are not. I must manipulate you like you are a voter and I am a politician. I must remove chunks of you and trade your flesh like you are a piece of meat and I am the butcher. I am become Efficient, Butcher of Time.
Something has changed. Life is not just life anymore - it is another life. It grows in front of us. It laughs and cries and shouts and gurgles and talks and spits and shits. Then it’s not an ‘it’ anymore - it’s a boy.
Something has changed. It was always me against the outside. Now there’s another like me. Now it’s him vs the outside. He sees like I saw: A father, a mother, an enormous, inexplicable world. You cannot remain a narcissist once you have a child - unless having a child for you is just another status update or possession like a house or a car.
All this weight that life deposits on a life; it feels unbearable sometimes, and then comes a boy and you realize it’s going to be the same for him. Unless you help him see it differently than you did. Unless you help him talk about things and open up, like you should have when you were him. (Now opening up feels almost impossible, like there’s a glacier over my chest). Unless you explain to him the value of explanations and reason and that he can understand the world if he tries and nothing is beyond the capabilities of his mind.
All those times I went somewhere nice and didn’t have a good time because of some insignificant worry, all those times I was a wet-blanket to my wife and to my family because of some made-up existential crisis that I love to fester in because it makes me feel superior to people who go about having a good time, who value the immediate things that matter, all those times I wanted to say things I didn’t - I want the boy to not make these same mistakes. I want him to be better than me.
But he will be what he will be. To place my heavy stamp upon his life is cruel. First, I will teach him not to listen to me and to think for himself. Then I will tell him not to be afraid of anything, not even of talking to people, not even of trying new things.
The rest of a more satisfying life, I hope, will follow.
Enjoyed reading your post. Reminded me of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. But more confessional and articulate like Plath's Bell Jar when you talked about festering existential crisis. I am sorry if this sounds reductive or if I am oversharing. Your post really spoke to me. Have a good day :)
Thank you for writing this so beautifully!