The Spirit Of The Times…
…is one of joyless urgency — Marilynne Robinson
I’ve just begun reading Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks, and this quote in the title has been mentioned in the book’s introduction. It is a very moving introduction — one that makes you think. It begs more than your attention. It calls you to contemplate your own life — your time left. Your eyes are opened to a new truth. The book puts it beautifully —
“… to the outrageous brevity and shimmering possibilities of our four thousand weeks.”
Now, you cannot help but think that if four thousand weeks is what a person who lives up to 80 years has, then how many weeks do I have left?
I’m turning 40 this year, and I had to halve the number—easy. So, if I live to be 80, I have about 2000 weeks left. In an instant, it seems like a big and small number—both at once. When you think of all the things that you want to do, it feels small. If you don’t think about any commitments at all—just simply living life—it seems like a significant number.
Have you felt time racing faster and faster as you get older? Days and weeks, months and years just zooming past. It seems that for some people in their seventies and eighties, the months seem to flash by in what feels like minutes.
