Things of Little Import

An overcast morning this morning.  The rain we have been expecting seems to have come early this morning so the patio has acquired the darker color of wet stones.  Opening the window I feel the cooler air - remarkably unusual for this time of year, so my local friends tell me.I hear the conversation of the the local avian conversing about some matter of great importance.

I have taken the day off today and so as I write, later than usual for me, the house is filled with the sounds of silence.  Kiki the Songbird occasionally chirps away - to talk to the rabbits?  Who knows.  The coffee from earlier this morning is not steaming hot but warm enough to be consumed.


Mornings like this seem to come far too rarely these days.  The sense of things rolling around in my mind in the silence of the moment have become times to be treasured - so often it feels as if I am rushing from place to place and thought to thought in such a hurry that little if anything of importance gets done.

Things of importance.  Aye, there is the rub.  I so often seem enmeshed in things of little importance, tasks that are great only in the minds of the small.  I feel as if I spend my life on things of no substance, waiting for the things of substance to someday appear.

But do they appear?  Or are they something that must be sought out?  It is a truth that small things and things of no import will always multiply to fill all available time in our lives.  They seemingly require no encouragement to do so and feeding them in slightest only results in a sudden explosion of their activity. 

The things of import, the things that matter - the thoughts that need time to ponder, the writings that need time to be written, the relationships that need interaction to be built - all of these are built on the edifice of time and attention, items that the things of little import seem to steal relentlessly.

How does one make such time?  I wish I knew.  The things that I have tried - carving out time, delegation, even planning - never seem to get the job done.  I may start strong, but inevitably find myself falling back to being controlled by the trivial things of life.

Perhaps it is different.  Perhaps it is a matter of simply beginning to address the big things rather than trying to make time and space to carve out to address the big things - a sort of directly doing rather than indirectly planning to do, if you will.  At least if one addresses something it has to be dealt with then rather than being shelved.

But something must be done. Time is relentless - and the things of little import will happily eat everything available until the moment of death.