A raven on a skull inspired the writing prompt of Tempus Fugit, the ground was fifteen minutes away
It was a death camp survivor, Victor Frankel, who knew the value of time. He had to live day to day, of course, to survive the horror. And he found that all of the survivors, as many as one in twenty made it, had a reason to live. The ones sans reason, sans hope, perished swiftly.
So there he was, outside the camps, living and paying income tax and, to quote Kipling, trying to get each second out of the unforgiving minute, but… it just didn’t do to stress about the day. What you don’t want is to sing to yourself Alabama’s song, “Oh I’m in a hurry I don’ know why…” As with grasping a nettle, there is an optimum, not too tight and not too loose.
His advice to his patients was try to live as you have already lived, made the mistakes you are making now, but this time you have a chance to avoid that. Makes sense to me.
As to having a meaning to life: The most extreme case I know of was when a man went to see Frankel, shattered and broken, because a year ago his dear wife had died. Frankel asked, “Would you have wanted to go first and your dear wife have to live without you?” Answer, “GOD NO!”
“That is the meaning: You are alive so she doesn’t have to suffer.” And the old patient went away in peace.
In my case, I find that in life, as in sports, my adversary is pressure. I need to do whatever it takes to defeat it. Nancy Green said, just before she won a gold medal, “I don’t have to win this race, I can have a nice career at university.” And off she skied into history.
I find I can banish regrets if I live each day, to quote the pressure-release song of Frozen, as if each day is a fractal. If each fractal is right, then my life is right, and yes, that means each day I hit the keyboard. “A day without X is a day without sunshine” say the Spanish. I know my X, I can’t “have it all,” but I can have just enough in my day.
On Monday I met with two writers. One said every evening she writes of three good things of that day; the other said that every night she writes three things to be grateful for. Makes sense. I do that too, only verbally, only I don’t write it down, I am like Snoopy having a thought balloon, but I’m less grandiose than a children’s cartoon dog. No “Here’s the WWI flying ace,” more “Here I am, enjoying this new season. I wonder what exciting thing I will do today?” I got that line from Piglet.
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Sean Crawford
Still above ground
March
2024
Blog Note: My meaning of life is edited writing. I put this improvised Friday Free Fall piece in today so that my blog does not stop abruptly, as I am releasing my commitment to post every five days on the fives. Well, I will still post on such dates but not many of them. I am in a small fortnightly writers group to criticize my shorter work of up to 750 words. So my reduced output will feel meaningful.
The timing works for me because very recently my viewer stats have receded, groan! And at the same time I have felt relief from getting ahead on my weekly fiction, hurray!
I am in a weekly fiction group where, like having a childhood piano teacher, I struggle to keep up with the demand. Hence getting ahead feels so sweet. And now I may grant myself an even more of a relaxed feeling when I cut down on my essays. Something I look forward to.
Glad to hear you are still working on your writing. You have a lot of talent.
Thank you for your life-sustaining words.
For my fiction, I warmed up, accidentally, with a short story over three or four weeks with the group being hard on me but encouraging me since I acted on their feedback. After that was done, I wrote some action scenes for a hero. The group liked it and now, from their prompting, I am improving my story by going to a possible beginning to introduce the hero’s theme and inner conflict. I have yet to catch up to the action where I left off, but when I do it will express the theme wonderfully.