Time Enough

It has been an ongoing puzzle for me. On the one hand, I believe that we choose to incarnate on earth. I believe that we have goals, objectives, lessons and dreams and fantasies about what we will accomplish, how we'll manage to remember God, remember our heavenly home or superconsciousness if you prefer.

But then, my own personal experience of finding this whole time requirement a bit of a wet blanket, I can't fathom why everyone isn't working hard as heck to get whatever lessons earth holds and move on. Why come back if it can in any way be avoided? Everything takes so long in this place, this dimension, this time-space continuum. And boy do I mean continuum.

Today was the very first time I ever glimpsed the allure of earthly immortality. Guess I could have figured it out sooner if I read a little Anne Rice now and again. The thrill of acquiring and mastering all known knowledge.

AOL had some pictures from the Hubble telescope on their news site. Most of them I'd seen before, but I can never see them too often. They sparked all kinds of wonder. Again.

One talked about the evidence for anti-matter from the distored view of enveloped galaxies. Another showed a mass of gas that brought to mind a floating angel contemplating where to move a galaxy or nebula to make the scene just so, the pattern a more clear reflection of perfection. The wonder of imagination.

Every so often I buy books, calendars and magazines on astronomy. I went outside the other night to stare at the lunar eclipse. I don't own a telescope, so I brought out the binoculars for whatever they might add. I find the view of the universe fascinating. The structure is so obviously a macrocosm of our bodies.

If I had ten years to devote to learning astronomy, to unearthing and assembling all the knowledge we earthlings have currently accumulated on dark matter, wave frequency, color, star birth, star death and black holes, then I'd be able to come up with my own unified theory of the universe.

Why not me?

And then I'd take another ten to twenty years to study all the best epics, all the best nonfiction, all the best fantasy and I'd then be able to take four more to write the equivalent of Star Trek meets Carl Sagan's best with a new style that would have Shakespeare's spirit taking notes. Why not? Why not me?

Because I'm too busy taking seriously what the world holds out as necessary and important. I have a job that keeps me in my home, I take care of this home, I take time to enjoy my friends when I can. I'm busy mastering the mundane realities of living.

But if I had a couple hundred years to live, I could spend the first hundred years creating for myself the perfect home, storing up the perfect investments, cultivating the best techniques for sane living. Then I'd have a few hundred more to study astronomy, history, languages and then chemistry and geology too. Then I could really work on that unifed theory of everything. Heck, I wouldn't just be able to describe dark matter, maybe I could create some too.

Uh-oh. Maybe going straight through without a break perverts perspective.

People often suggest sleeping over a major decision. The perspective that is gained from taking a breather, walking away for a moment. Perspective.

I'll just enjoy these 87 years the way a child enjoys each day. Learn what I can, do what I can and be grateful for the whole lot of it.

Then go to sleep awhile, dream awhile. Reawake to a new day as if reborn. Reborn, but with all the knowledge gained from the days that came before.

Maybe it isn't about the unified theory of everything. Who would such a book be for anyway? And what would the knowledge offer to the experience of living, the process of growing.

I'll look into an astronomy class. A primer couldn't hurt. Why not?