Time Bastard Origins, Part I

I wasn’t born the Time Bastard. It was the profligacy of my youth that drove me to this neurotic overcompensation. Recollections of lying on grassy hillsides staring at the sky evoke despair over time forever lost. Back in the days when I had no word for, nor notion of, productivity, I might while away the hours in the woods, in my comic books, or in my room (listening to "In My Room" by the Beach Boys).

For a while I took some solace in the notion that I was "filling the well," that I was engaged in a type of contemplation that now serves me well as I spill the contents of this accumulated reflection onto the printed page for your benefit. I have since abandoned this interpretation as wishful rationalization for misspent years which yielded little more than a final realization that Gilligan would never get off of that blasted island.

By the time I had come to my senses, I was a prisoner of my income, a wage slave with limited blocks of time to pursue my extracurricular dreams. As a family man and a home owner, my "me time" was further limited, and I became compulsive and greedy, clinging to the hours (truly, the seconds) with Gollum-esque obsession.

I had read an article about parenting that said something to the effect that if you give your kids attention every time that they ask for it, that you will send the implicit message that they are the center of the universe and become inappropriately entitled and have expectations of others’ time disproportionate to their true value. This made perfect sense to me, so that I felt completely justified for ignoring the kids when they requested my time, making it clear that I had more important things to do. They have grown to be less entitled than their peers, but they, like me, have become greedy little buggers.

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Susan Ertz