Agony is...
posted by Tom Foolery | January 29, 2012
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IcerocketAgony is...
Having young children.
Not for the usual parental complaints - "my kids are so whiney, my children are so demanding" - no. Agony is watching your children get older. Agony is a Sunday night when you know that when they open their little eyes in the morning, you'll be on your way to work.
An average human in Western Society works roughly 8 hours per day. Count in an hour travelling each way (if you're lucky) and you're out of the house a minimum of 10 hours per day. Usually I get to see my kids for a measly hour and a half every day (not counting weekends). My kids are 1 and 4. By the time they're both 18 and 21 respectively I'll have been in their lives for a grand total of 6 and 7 years...if I'm lucky. The rest is spent in the thrall of employers, beating my head against a computer monitor, half-heartedly caring about deadlines or customer complaints. I spend the majority of my waking hours with people i don't love, people i don't want to spend a third of my life with.
Until we, as a people, learn to usurp consensus reality, until we can EVOLVE as a race beyond this Victorian, production line work ethic, we are doomed to see our kids lives, OUR lives slip away, consumed by the corporate machine.
Every day I can see a change in my children as they grow and develop. Every step, every gesture, is both agony and ecstacy. Everything they do both enlightens me and destroys me in equal measures. I can never stop the inexorable march of time, but can i do anything to maximise the limited time we DO have together?
I believe it should be one of the goals of social networks such as Evolver to help people learn and realise that we do not ever need to be mired in Western production ethics. Of course people need to work, but our lives shouldn't be dedicated to the production line. We shouldn't be wage slaves, we shouldn't be caged in foam cubicles. It's not what we're supposed to be doing here.
Agony is...
Getting older and seeing the potential you once had slip away, seeing all the mistakes you made, the poor choices, in restrospect. Hindsight is one cruel mistress.
Seize the day. do what is in your heart to do, live your dreams and spend time with your families. It's the human thing to do.
Comments
Seize the day.
— Jan 29, 2012
all we have is "now." living from the heart is where it's at. yes, something is wrong with the western, industrial world mindset and method of living like robots pursuing the dangling carrot like donkeys. life should not be constrained and defined by "method." society has become full of tinmen. very heartfelt post. thank you.
These precious moments .........
— Jan 30, 2012
The agony is yet to come, soon they will leave home
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUwjNBjqR-c
Just ..... like .... you.
Call your Mom and Dad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85W0JQMLJ8g&feature=channel_video_title
Cat's in the Cradle
— Jan 30, 2012
Your comment immediately brought to mind (apparently as it did with Harbinger) the late Harry Chapin, and his song Cat's in the Cradle. You are very right concerning this inherently erroneous system that we are trapped in. My only advice to you is; make every moment a precious moment, a quality moment. TURN OFF the TV, the computer, and anything else that eats away the time. Take time to play with them, read to them, talk to them. These things will make the moments and time not seem so lost to you. These small things will establish a close connection that will remain for the rest of your lives. In time, and with age, they will come to realize that you must spend time away at work, and they will also come to appreciate the time that you are able to devote to them. Just remember; to a child, nothing is trivial, especially your time with them.
