Of the Merits of Thrift Part 4

I suppose when it comes right down to the heart of the matter, the merits of thrift, it is this: use time wisely. Using time wisely has a certain set of meanings that may be as personal as we are individual. I mean this, there are only so many hours in a day, in a year, in a lifetime. It's a question of what it means to use time wisely.

In our world of ever increasing leisure time and diversions, it really is a question of how we spend our time. It's all around us, all the time, and the distractions are so insidious that there cannot be enough words to forewarn us. There are the numerous screens, yes. There are the many hours that can be freely given to the video games, social media and one short video after another on all the outlets designed for our personalized entertainment. I am not free from these, and after I've spend the small hours of the day blindly staring into the screen, I feel a sense of loss that doesn't feel very good.

It's time that has been spent, time that is gone. And it is time that will be never be gained back.

With the finite amount of time allotted to us, at what point in life do we realize that we must use it wisely? At what point in life do we realize how much we really want to do, to make, create or otherwise accomplish and overlay this on the amount of time we have? What I think is this: I purposefully decided to be a writer many years ago, and it has never been an easy path especially when it came to time and my use of it.

The truth is this, I would rather hang out and drink coffee with my friends than write. I would rather hang out and drink gin with my friends than write. I would rather walk around the neighborhood looking for any sort of meddlesome trouble than write. I would rather fritter away the day at the movies, at the bowling alley, riding my bike. I would rather do this because it's easier, it's more fun and writing, well, writing is work and work sucks.

It may be the higher laws, the deeper callings in life that compel me, or any of us to do the things that we do. I become jealous and maybe a little angry when I see others who can spend all day, every day, like the living dead smoking dope and playing video games. It feels like the easy way out of life, and I wish that I could live my life that way. But I cannot, and I think anyone who makes art feels about the same way. You have to get up and do it, whatever it is. And the deeper meaning to it is that there is only so much time and there is a great deal to do.

The use of time when engaged in writing is only one facet to it. What I mean is this: if you have a day to write, a whole day, that means from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed, you probably have about sixteen hours. I have never known a single writer who can write for sixteen straight hours. The time will probably be broken up in a logical fashion. This is not a likely situation for any writer. I feel like most people, even the writers who write full time have other obligations in life. What about those of us who have to work and perhaps it's not sixteen hours a day but sixteen hours a week? Use of time is suddenly very important.

This is the notion, those non-writing hours, all those other hours in the day, the week, in a lifetime, how do those get spent? And of those non-writing hours, how many of those are spent needlessly? I would venture to guess that most of them are labored hours spent doing superfluous things. I bet with a little and I mean very little critical thought, it is not difficult to find more hours in a day.

For years, when asked where I find the time to do all things I do I would reply that I have the same amount of time as anyone else. My response is that if you have a television and a Facebook account, you have all the time in the world. But as I've gotten farther down my own path, I have realized it's more than all of that. I realize now that it's not just the day to day stuff, the distractions, it's an entire way of life. It's a way of seeing the world, interacting with the way we live and purposefully doing some things over others.

For me, it has always been knowing how much I need to live, and how much I'm willing to do in order to live. Most of my life has been spent without a car, for instance. That means, straight away that I have freer hours because I haven't had to support a car. There is no television in my home, and therefor no one telling me what to buy, what to think or how to live my life. I have never had those expensive tastes in clothing, in dining experiences or a need for bigger or newer gadgets that take more and more money to operate.

Thrift or the act of being thrifty to me means only one thing: more time, more energy and a lighter step. I may not have the things that most think I should have. I may not have those things that are symbols of wealth. I may seem like a pauper or a monk, or all of that. But my life is not austere. I have all the time in the world. And it's amazing how much I've been able to do.