there are 1440 minutes in a day

(Originally posted on 12/1)

Last night Jo was listening to snippets of lost media songs, immersed in the bittersweet experience of enjoying a creation that has already begun to disappear with time.

We discussed it for a bit. Talked about how all media will eventually become lost media. About how many millions* of books have been written and forgotten. Almost everything we experience in our lifetimes will be lost in a hundred years. There are plenty of days when that reality is defeating but, most of the time, I find solace in it. It levels the playing field, so to speak.

As I sort through this life, what has already passed and what I want from the back half, I become more at peace with its transient nature. Maybe the idea of legacy, in general, is overrated. I’m okay if this is all there is, we’re all just ephemeral. I don’t mind fading.

I no longer have the benefit of youth, and I’ve never had much ambition, but the want of more, well, that’s fairly engrained in all of us, right? A universal human experience, though the definition of ‘more’ may vary from person to person.

For me, I want more of whatever’s been happening internally over the past few months:
Learning and growing.
Understanding when to take up space, and when to hold back.
Evaluating what I want from the relationships in my life.
Contemplating how to imbue purpose and meaning to my creativity without wanting anything grand to come from it.

Just doing what makes me happy – well, at least as much as the tethers of responsibility and adulthood will allow. Because what would make me happy right about now isn’t necessarily sitting at my desk, and yet I am stuck here for another five hours.

* it’s estimated that 129,864,880 books have been published since the invention of the Gutenberg press in 1440.