Time time time..see what’s become of…

I like this essay by Kirsty Logan, on the cost of creating. Posted on the Pank Magazine blog, the Logan postulates  that we buy time by working at other jobs. She has a good point regarding writers in particular, in that we don’t need many materials to actually do the act of writing, unlike musicians (who need amps, instruments, studios, etc) and other artists. Writers only need a small space, a pen, some paper, maybe a computer, and the time to write down the words. Logan’s take on it is that we work the other jobs to “buy” this time, and when that time is squandered we are doing ourselves a great disservice.

“Every week I work as a waitress to earn enough to buy a little free time for writing, and then I spend my hard-won Wednesday morning playing silly Facebook games and making unnecessarily complicated plans for lunch. I do not spend all of my precious minutes churning out beautiful, effortless prose and opening acceptance letters from London publishers. Although I work hard to earn time, I do not always take the best care of it. If I did have a Mont Blanc pen engraved with my initials then I’m sure I wouldn’t use it to dig loose hairs out of the drain; if I had thick sheets of handmade paper then I wouldn’t use it to mop up spills. But this is exactly what I’m doing with the only tool I have: time. Spending an hour on social networking websites is like letting decaying grass build up in the blade of my lawnmower. What is the point in earning time only to waste it?”

In that spirit, I realize that it is my responsiblility to make the content on this blog as thought-provoking, meaningful and/or as spirit-jarring as I can. For it’s true that time can be squandered so easily, and we need time for so much–to create, to love, to watch the red-breasted sparrows lingering in the barren branches of the trees outside our windows, to enjoy a bit of cold sun as the raindrops pause for a second, and I agree with Logan in that we, in a sense and especially as working-people, we earn that time by putting in hours at jobs that aren’t necessarily infused with our passions (and if your job is your passion than you’re rad and keep doing whatever you’re doing because obviously it’s working).

If you’ve got a few minutes to spare, check out the essay. It’s nicely written and contains some “ah…yes” moments.