Time flies

I notice that yesterday I entitled a post "It's Monday," when in fact it was Tuesday.

The passing of days really has become sort of an inconsequential blur to me.

There was a time several years ago when I worried about how fast time was slipping away. I was getting older. My career wasn't where I wanted it to be. I was alone. I wasn't wealthy. I didn't have any social stature.

Somehow, I got over all that. It wasn't so much because of Buddhism, I think, as because I just got older, at least a little wiser and got more perspective.

I don't have any survey results to back it up, but I think most Americans feel the way I used to feel. I think this in large part the result of letting advertisers, marketers and media set our personal agendas and goals instead of setting them ourselves.

I remember several years ago there was a TV ad for some retirement fund. It must have run during golf tournaments on weekends and I probably saw it while at work in the newsroom. The ad showed a very affluent-looking retired couple.

"How are the Klabotniks doing since they retired, dear?" she asked.

"I don't know," he replied, "but they don't look like they're living as well as they used to."

The point of the ad was to encourage people to buy into this fund, of course, but there were a couple of interesting subtexts as well. One was that the viewer was not supposed to identify with the couple having the conversation, but with the unseen Klabotniks, who were unknowingly enduring the shame of being discussed by their presumably wealthier neighbors. How embarrassing!

The other subtext was that 'living as well' meant nothing more than 'owning stuff'. The Klabotniks didn't seem to own as much stuff – Bobby Jones golfwear or an Escalade, for an example – so they were forced to endure the humiliation of being talked about behind their backs. Poor Klabotniks! Don't let this happen to you!

But for all the affluent retired couple knew, the Klabotniks had simply chucked everything, bought a little cabin on a lake somewhere, and were happily and comfortably whiling away the days not being buried under debt and a pile of junk from the mall.

Or maybe the Klabotniks bought a practical, reliable minivan and drove to some eclectic neighborhood coffee shop every morning to visit friends while the affluent retired couple were still primping and preening for their eventual appearance at the Evil Empire Starbuck's.

Maybe the Klabotniks just hung out with their sleeping, low-maintenance cats while the affluent retired couple loaded up their Brittany Spaniel for its twice-a-week trip to the groomers.

These were all just fictional characters, of course, so such speculation doesn't get you very far.

But maybe the Klabotniks were happy and comfortable, having no concept of either being or not being, while the affluent retired couple were greedy superficial warmongering waterboarding-supporting bastards who voted for the worst president in American history not once but twice, for God's sake.

Today is Wednesday, by the way.