On an exceptionally boring afternoon, after an exceptionally dull Minecraft session (in which I died twice to a skeleton), I looked at my bookshelf. I wanted to read something quick and insightful that would force me to think about life in general. At 25, I have become accustomed to asking the big questions, indulging in philosophical warfare with myself, only to go nowhere, only to land where I started.
I opened a random page from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. The pages had all turned yellow, and my bookmark finally saw sunshine, only for me to flip past it. My eyes fell on section 17 of Book IV, which read:
“Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee.”
First impression: “He is clearly talking about my procrastination schedule.”
Second impression: “I don’t want to waste my time. I should begin writing NOW.”
Third impression: “Let me Google the average lifespan of a person living in 100 AD before I start writing.”
I googled. Apparently, it was 56.2 ± 15.5 years. Unfortunately, this was calculated by averaging the lifespans of documented Roman philosophers, poets, and politicians. So I don’t really know the golden number.
This is how distracted my mind is. I can’t stop myself from doing unnecessary warm-ups before I actually open my text editor. These warm-ups take at least 5 ± 2 days until my soul hits me with, “When will you write your masterpiece?”
I wish to write something as monumental and ginormous as À la recherche du temps perdu. However, at this pace, it would take me at least ten thousand years.
Ten thousand years, and I would die before turning a hundred.
Ten thousand years ago, mammoths roamed the earth, unaware of the disaster yet to strike.
In ten thousand years, someone might find my 300 pages of barely written work beneath the permafrost and wonder, “Why so many blank pages?”