Time Lies Wanking On The Floor...

One thing that you young people don't appreciate about we old people, is how much 'time' shrinks as the years go by. Time, as you will know, is relative (or doesn't actually exist at all – in fact, if everyone in the world voted to remove all clocks and all calendars so that nobody was conscious of the ticking over into a new day, new month, new year or new decade then time would, in effect, stand still), but nowhere is that relativity more evident than in old age. It's all quite logical. For someone who is twenty, one calendar year represents 5% of his entire experience and consciousness; for someone who is sixty-five (for example), that same calendar year represents only 1.5% of his total awareness. Therefore, it seems much shorter.

I know for a fact that there isn't enough time available to me. There is just so much to do these days, and try as I might to keep on top of things, I always seem to be running around chasing my tail and yet never seem to be catching it. Today (despite not being able to locate my 'list of things to do' for some reason) I know that there is too much to fit into the oh, so short hours of wakefulness. In theory, I don't even have enough time to write this blog, but I feel that I have neglected you for too long, dear reader, and so write it I must. I suppose the consolation for this ever-rising terror of panic is that almost everything I need to do is enjoyable. Of course, there are black spots of duties, and chores I face with a certain amount of ennui (such as applying for jobs, or cleaning the kitchen, or queuing at the Post Office) but in the main, the tasks I wish to see completed fill me with pleasure and delight.

The burden of responsibility - if it can so be called - is slightly tipped out of balance with assignments I need to finish in respect of the Triliteral Festival (see link on left, or click here), but this is such delicious fun that I hardly care. It means that I perhaps give undue preference to these jobs than I ought to, given that there are other pressing matters in hand. Yesterday was particularly typical – there is a Leaning Tower of Pisa's worth of ironing to be done, waiting in my airing cupboard, but who would choose to do that in preference to being interviewed live on BBC Radio? One of my colleagues on Triliteral (Daniel Hallam) and I were invited to talk about the festival live on air yesterday, and it was huge fun. I've never done radio before – although I have done TV – and it was a fascinating experience. I hate the sound of my voice (ha! I can hear many of my friends scoffing at that particular claim!), but there is nothing I seem able to do to change it, so I just had to focus on what I wanted to say about the festival. The producer gave us a CD of the interview so I had an opportunity afterwards to listen to myself – and although, as in all such cases, there were lots of holes in the content of what I said, the interview seemed to convey enough of the right information. So, I am now a radio star.

Anyway, enough of this. I need to make a quick decision: Do I give up all other pleasures in life (the ones that get in the way of productivity – drink, sex, procrastination, going to the gym etc.) and devote myself entirely to work? Or do I try to juggle my balls as I've always done? There's no easy way of deciding this. I know one thing – that the ever-shrinking telescopic madness of time is battling against me. The fight is exhausting, and the irony is that the older one gets (and therefore that the battle becomes more fierce), the harder that fight becomes. But oh, it's all such fun!