The day, if you think about it, is the basic measurement of life, the milepost on the highway. We say “How’s your day going” or “How was your day.” Only if we’re spending a ridiculous amount of time with someone do we say, ‘How was your afternoon.’ And we never say ‘How was your hour?’
No, it’s the day, sandwiched neatly between the slow stupor of waking up and the gentle resignation of going to sleep. Each day we wake up and we rub sleep out of our eyes and we urinate and we brush the smell of lazy night out of our mouths and we pass gas and we cover our naked bodies with clothes and then we’re ready … for something, for anything.
And each day we laugh and smile and sigh and get frustrated. We dream, we desire, we give up, and we laugh about it all … years later, over drinks with new friends, and with old friends. Each day we meet someone new, whether we realize it or not. And those people we met years ago – or weeks ago – slip through our fingers, whether we realize it or not.
Each day we see something new. Or we see something old from a new perspective. And, sometimes, when that happens, we point it out to the person beside us. And, sometimes, we’re alone.
The day is imposed on us as the blazing, exploding, gaseous sun screams across the cosmos, and our own tiny blue and brown ball of land and water spins around. Compared to those awesome astronomic movements and forces and tilted axes, we are nothing and we must submit.
But the moment is our creation. When we say it was a beautiful moment, it’s because we created it. Here is what the OED says of the moment:
moment |ˈmōmənt|
noun
1 a very brief period of time : she was silent for a moment before replying | a few moments later he returned to the office.
But I have a different definition. The moment is the measurement of time in which we sustain a single emotion. If we are angry and we stay angry for 15 minutes, then that is a moment. If we’re walking on a sidewalk and it’s October and the yellow and read and orange leaf of a tree falls slowly and softly and perfectly down to our toes and we smile, that is a moment.
We think about that moment for a minute, for two minutes, for five minutes maybe, and then it’s time for a new moment. I wish I knew how many moments make up a day, but I don’t think there’s a formula. It depends on our personalities, our moods, our surroundings. Does the fast pace of contemporary life mean that we have more moments each day than our grandparents did when they were our age? If every email we receive, every instant message, every text message, every song on the radio has the potential to evoke some emotion, are we constantly changing how we feel every minute of every hour of every day?
I would like to propose, as a hypothesis, that each day is comprised of 173 moments.
And why do we lie when we respond and say good, or bad, or pretty good, or really great?
On our birthday, or the day after, we ask ourselves, how was the year? Have I grown as a person? Am I wiser? Am I enjoying myself? Am I following my dreams? Am I caring for the people I love?
And tens of thousands of other moments; some of them preserved with digital cameras, some of them preserved here on this blog, and some of them gone forever.
I can pull out 100 moments out of 63,145 and I can tell you it was the best year of my life, the best year that anyone has ever had in any life. I can pull out 100 others and tell you the exact opposite.
It seems unfair: that life has so many moments.
It makes it impossible to describe.
Life becomes whatever we decide to make of it.
But then, maybe that’s what makes it bearable.
Welcome to the 27 club. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Really just a few guys hanging out sipping on their beers listening to Broken Social Scene.
I was lying in bed the other night, counting elk (Canada) to try and sleep. I decided to play a stupid game and try and compute how many days it’s been since I’d been born, leap years and all. I don’t think I’d ever bothered to count.
“365 times 27 – break it up – thirty-six times twenty-seven plus 5 times twenty-seven, plus 31, plus 28, plus 31, plus 30… and so on… add last week… wow. Weird. Double-check. Triple Check. Yup.”
I’d been alive 9999 days. I turned my head to check the time; it was 11:59pm.
The next day I felt a rumble in my tummy that ended up being something more than a tummyache, and has kept me more or less bedridden until a few days ago. Shitty way to break 10000, if you ask me.
Your 10000 is in 140 days. It’s a far more celebrationable number than 27. Make up for your low-key raspberry sorbet with oreo cookies mixed in by having something different. Maybe replace the Oreos with Fudgee-Os – think big. Just don’t get sick.
You find it unfair that life has so many moments; I find it unfair that there are so few.
You are too young to be having old fart thoughts.
Happy belated birthday, nonetheless.
You should look into alternative visions of the time space continuum to broaden your perspective. I suggest Navajo philosophy…or Nuer.
Happy belated b-day, too. The next round is on me.
Happy Birthday (Even more belated)!
Happy belated birthday, Os. 27 is a good age, things only get better and better.
feliz cumplean~os. i hope that your birthday was filled with sweet moments.
feliz cumplean~os. i hope that your birthday was filled with many sweet moments.
dude it is over. i am avoiding 27. i am truning 22 again.
Que FilOSOfo! Feliz cumple mi querido David. Un beso y deseo que el proximo an~o este repleto de buenos momentos.
Just think three more year before you go through your first mini mid-life crisis. Happy Birthday!!
Thanks everyone for the love and warm wishes – really means a lot.
happy birthday, oso!
your post makes me think about how historians always refer to these things called “historical moments.” and it’s a really nebulous term, probably meant to sound cool and smart. but what i think is interesting is that “historical moments” (at least as i understand the jargon) are much longer than what you are describing–like a year, or 50 years or even a century–and time (or moment) is tied together by some kind of significant change (social, political, cultural, etc.) occurring over a long period. so maybe when it comes to reflecting on the year on your birthday, whatever life changes or processes you’ve experienced might also be called a “moment.” 🙂
Hola querido Oso! Otra vez te deseo un muy-muy feliz cumpleaños—Como ya te he felicitado 2 veces, creo que, cosmicamente vale por 2!!! O sea que…ya tienes 28.
Happy belated.