Feels Post
I’ve had a couple of feels posts floating around in my head. Well, they’re mostly just loose ideas.
This one is going to be about time and maybe coping.
There will be more, I’m sure. About death and nothingness and also about marriage and feminism. And other things. Who knows?
Time is kind of a given. It’s also a human thing, our attempt to quantify a part of nature because we like quantifying. I consider that a good thing. Assigning labels to time and imagining rules that for the most part govern how time appears to work are good things. They mean we can understand a lot about our universe physically.
We can also use these concepts for more abstract purposes – such as coping. Coping, to me, is pretty much handling a situation. I know the definition includes “effectively” but we don’t always do things effectively so I’m just going to omit that part. Instead, coping seems more like a variation on waiting: you wait for an outcome to a situation. You may be involved in determining an outcome or you may not.
So, when we cope, we measure time out in increments. We can see our progress or lack thereof in dealing with something. We can set goals and we can acknowledge changes about us and in us.
A fair amount of things in life involve us having to cope with stuff. Because that’s kind of what life is: one big cope-fest measured out in birthdays and holidays and work weeks and weekends. Seconds, minutes, hours. We can’t really do much about it because these events just keep happening. All we can do is try and keep up and deal with situations as they arise.
Sometimes time might seem like an enemy, sucking away your youth and throwing obstacle after obstacle your way but I think time is just a constant: it doesn’t have an intent or goal. There is no time endgame of vendetta. Time doesn’t owe you anything and it really isn’t on your sides.
Instead, it just keeps on being time.
There’s so few constants in our world. We can’t even be sure of ourselves. We can’t trust the weather or our cars or our jobs. We can’t even really trust our spouses. But we can trust time. No matter what goes on, it will drag you with it. You might kick and scream or you might ride it joyously or you may just get swept away, but no matter what it will not stop for you and therefore you simply cannot stop.
When it comes to coping, trying to “take your time” or “deal with things in your own time” is kind of moot. You don’t have any time, time has you. So sit there and puzzle and mull and dissect situations. Have fear and anxiety over what hasn’t yet come but will. These things really don’t matter. A bad situation will pass, whether or not you conquer your emotions. Time will see to this. It’s a promise.
Go on and cope, but know that while you wait for the situation to be resolved, time doesn’t care. And before you know it, you might have missed out on some really awesome seconds, minutes, or hours.