Intro

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I think what I am most afraid of is time. Time running out, not enough time, having too much time... I wake up every single humdrum of a morning and the first thing I do is look over at my wretched little clock and if it happens to be after ten I think "what time I have wasted! The morning is just about over! The morning I could've spent skipping rocks over the magnificent ripples of the lake, eating salubrious whole-wheat biscuits on the pier over-looking the quarry. Oh so much I could've done, yet I have wasted these hours on routine sleep." If I awake at eight or earlier I think "well I have time." Then I lay on my bed sheets until it's ten and I spend the rest of my day scolding myself for not taking the chance to accomplish something great.

I see my time and everything that is possible as little sea shells lying on the sea shore. As the waves roll up onto the shore, they grasp the shells in an ever-so forceful way and pull them out into the sea to be lost forever.
Piece by piece, second by second, my time and my life is rushing away from me... all because I cannot choose which shell, which option, is the most exceptionally breathtaking of all. I see myself waiting on that shore line, starting at the shells. Eventually the waves would roll up the shore and pull me away as well, into the vast ocean where I would drown in all my worries and obsessions.

There's really two ways to deal with that mindset. The first is being immensely active and adventurous, every single second your eyes are open. The second is to not do anything at all. Just to lie in bed and rake yourself over the coals for not getting yourself out of bed.

However I don't just do one or the other. I am sporadically adventurous just as I am resentful. One day I may awake and find myself determined to catch a pacific halibut, and I will not come home again until I do so. Another day I may wake up and feel as though it is too late to attain anything, so I stay in bed. I go through these stages in sets, almost like clockwork, but not quite as precise. Like a broken clock, it works however is not always accurate. I that case, I myself am a broken clock.

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