I sit & rot

I'm sipping decaf. I've come full circle.

I started drinking coffee for the caffeine. Not because I wanted to start caffeine--because I already had, and a Mountain Dew in the morning as I was so accustomed began to seem uncivilized, despite its dew premise and such a fitting connotation. Got tired of the fizz.

That leaves tea, or coffee. Considering the country I live in, tea would be daft.

In the morning, I tip the Nestlé French Vanilla creamer bottle into a Harry Potter mug, dump in the ambiguously South American coffee, and relish in the United States' inability to accept certain, let's say, facets, of world culture. We take the Harry Potter, but not the tea. We take the Brazilian ethanol concept, but apply it to a country that has no such infrastructure. We take the "French" food, but not the politics. I once said "Renault" in the presence of others of similar age; drool production had to triple to account for seeping losses. French cars, it seems, were more tea than Harry Potter.

Caffeine and cars, David. Good work.

My only goal this summer was to watch every episode of British motoring program Top Gear. I can now say, I have seen all 112 episodes. They run an hour long each. Four and two-thirds days of my life are now locked in to that show--and to the British version of English. I figure I watch it fifty percent for the cars, twenty-five percent for the rants of Jeremy Clarkson (look him up, he's my hero), and the final twenty-five percent for British English. The way they speak is so different from United States' English. I find it fascinating.

If you want examples of British English, use Google. Look up "chuffed". (It sounds worse than it is.)

Continuing the theme of passivity, I finally played, and beat, the campaign mode in Epic Games' Gears of War 2. The video game was released November of '08. I'm a little "late" on that one, then. My brother must have had it finished in days, where I took months. I have spoken with others about this; they all say, "About time!" Well, let me talk a little bit about time.

Until now (as in this last week) I haven't had time to play that game. I literally haven't. During the autumn, winter, and spring I was working 14 hours a week, going to high school, and studying. People always ask why we have textbooks--it's just so I can read them, that's it. They're for me. Yeah. So I was busy.

I'm not trying to sound pompous, I assure you. I simply find time a strange concept. Six months wait for a video game is entirely reasonable for a person like me. I like to do things. Get my hands dirty, whether it be in the abstract or the practical. Calculus for breakfast and engine rebuild for dinner. (Usually skip lunch, time is of the essence.) To sit and rot (aha!) in front of a television screen clutching a white, Microsoft controller--that is characteristically un-me. I could be doing something seemingly more productive.

But in my mind, November 2008 was yesterday. It wasn't like I was sitting in a darkened room for eight months, going, "Can I play it yet? Can I play it yet?", but more like I was in a semi-lit room for eight months, room being faintly illuminated due to the fact I was on fire, screaming "Stop! Drop! Roll!", and bouncing off the walls. It went by with little regard to gaming. It's a messy metaphor, I know. But the simple fact of the matter is that those eight months went by like a second. I couldn't have possibly played Gears of War any sooner.

But did those months really go by in "like a second"?

Time is a silly animal.

I always laugh at people that say something went by really fast--e.g. high school. College. "Enjoy it," they say, "because it will go by faster than you think." I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say "NO" to that. Hear me out.

Everything always seems fast or easy after you've done it. Man climbs Everest. Takes months of planning and training; it is dangerous and expensive. Gets back to the office the next week--"So how was it? Was it hard?" someone invariably asks. "Oh, it was great! I'd do it again!" he replies.

Well, shit.

It wasn't easy when he was planning it. It wasn't easy when he almost died of *insert applicable hazard*. It wasn't easy, ever. It took a lot of hard work to climb Everest. It was a serious undertaking in every imaginable way--but something about human nature makes us incredibly, stupidly proud of our achievements--so the man leaves the office that night, having convinced the middle-aged secretary that, he too, could scale Everest. "It was easy," after all.

I consider this trait akin to sex, in that it can have untimely consequences, but is ultimately necessary for the survival of humankind as a whole. For everyone who dies of AIDS, some staggering statistic of children are born in yuppyville and grow up to inhabit law offices and hospitals. And similarly, for everyone who overestimates their exploring ability due to post-facto, secondhand bragging and dies hiking, seventeen new galaxies are discovered and named some alphanumeric string. It's just the way the world works.

But back to time and old people. And their stories. I want to say something, before I get to that "In Memoriam" age--nothing goes by fast. We think it does, but it doesn't. Time is a sweet, sweet mistress, that seduces us into thinking that four years of high school just "flew by". Hey buddy, it didn't. Remember sitting in English class watching Hamlet: The Movie for a week straight? Remember Spanish class? Remember Geometry? Tell me that flew by.

We just think it did. It's hereditary.

It's a natural defense mechanism--when our children complain about school, about growing up, about the world--we can tell them not to worry--because it'll "just fly by".

I won't admit that. I'm going to tell my kids life sucks, and Spanish class especially. But heck, the sooner they get it done, the sooner they can tell their kids that it'll fly by.

And then they're even.