What are you doing? Some kind of calculation, I see. But it doesn't look like a simple addition, so you are not trying to figure out how much you spent on groceries last week.
First, I started thinking about how many days I have lived so far. Then, I wanted to know how many hours, and then minutes.
How many digit group separator did you have to use?
I was just wondering if I should adopt the SI English style or the SI French style.
I wouldn't recommend the Indian version. It requires more separators.
Anyway, the number is staggering. I'm going to throw away this paper, right at this moment.
That doesn't change the fact that you have wasted so many minutes of your life already.
Why do you think I have wasted my time?
It's just my guess. If you are totally satisfied with the way you have spent your time, you wouldn't be tossing the paper over your shoulder like you just did.
Okay, I am going to pick it up and... eat it, perhaps.
Some people turn to all sorts of diet to fix life's problems, but I would stay away from eating it. You just have to accept that you have come so far in life.
I learned Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," when I was in primary school. I liked the image of paths in the forest, because I had just left a country with relatively well preserved nature to settle in another with little nature conservation. I thought I would never have the chance to go back to that country where I found true nature.
You could understand a bit about making choices in life.
Around that time, I also became aware how much our choices are influenced by the societies we live in.
I didn't know that you were rather precocious.
Of course, I did not think in those terms, but I noticed that what people consider universal truths are not so. I came to that conclusion from observing daily activities, such as eating, dressing, and greeting. As far as I know, what licorice is in Sweden is what chocolate is in UK. Ice cream is a favorite all over the world, but its ranking differs. It is pretty normal to have chocolate sprinkles on your bread for breakfast if you happen to be a Dutch child, but your British mother may not allow you to have "chocolate for breakfast."
Just because that's "not what we do."
Most of the time, people make choices unconsciously or think that they do not have any other option. But that is often because they are bound by social conventions. We think that we rationally form our opinion, but are deeply affected by personal experiences.
If you had never learned, at age seven, that the baby-faced, bachelor clerk at the post office eloped with the wife of the postmaster and she left three kids behind, you would have different thoughts about life. That kind of a thing?
Or, your classmate stops coming to school one day, because she is kidnapped and you never see her again. It could even be fleeing from the secret police knocking on the door of your house.
What about falling flat on your face near L'Arc de Triomphe in Paris?
Let's ignore that one... Going back to the issue of how much time is already gone, I am now keenly aware that if I do B now, I will not have the time to do C in my life. I have lived long enough to know that project B will take as long as project A did, leaving no time for project C. I also know how much effort and attention project A required, and wonder if I am ready to go through the same for B or C. I have never thought about my activities in this way, and it's plain awful.
You used to take up whatever you wanted to without thinking much about its consequences.
And with gusto!
Many paths are closed permanently for you anyway, simply because it is too late in your life to start training, for example, to become a gymnast even if you had the talent to become one.
In that sense, the choices have greatly diminished at around age five and again around age ten, but that is not how we see our lives when we are so young. There must have been the last day when you used a diaper, but you don't think at that very instance, "Gee, I'm getting so old that I don't need a diaper any longer. I'm a step closer to the end."
One minute today is still of the same length as a minute was five years ago, but it starts to feel as if time were accelerating.
The sign of old age is not wrinkles, baldness, or the internal clock gone amok, but the realization that you will be leaving this world with a list of things that you would love to do, but have no time for.
Or, talent for that matter. Don't worry, you made the right decision by not trying to go to the Olympics as a gymnast. Why not look at the list of your accomplishments, by the way?
I put it in the recycling bin.
I meant figuratively!
I am beginning to understand what an older friend of mine said some time ago. To end your life graciously is a major undertaking.
Without regret, but also without too much of self-justification.
Ideally, you should be fully functional and willing to live until the day before your death and perfectly happy to leave the next day.
Self-immolation, duel, and suicide-bombing may fit your criteria...
First, I started thinking about how many days I have lived so far. Then, I wanted to know how many hours, and then minutes.
How many digit group separator did you have to use?
I was just wondering if I should adopt the SI English style or the SI French style.
I wouldn't recommend the Indian version. It requires more separators.
Anyway, the number is staggering. I'm going to throw away this paper, right at this moment.
That doesn't change the fact that you have wasted so many minutes of your life already.
Why do you think I have wasted my time?
It's just my guess. If you are totally satisfied with the way you have spent your time, you wouldn't be tossing the paper over your shoulder like you just did.
Okay, I am going to pick it up and... eat it, perhaps.
Some people turn to all sorts of diet to fix life's problems, but I would stay away from eating it. You just have to accept that you have come so far in life.
I learned Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," when I was in primary school. I liked the image of paths in the forest, because I had just left a country with relatively well preserved nature to settle in another with little nature conservation. I thought I would never have the chance to go back to that country where I found true nature.
You could understand a bit about making choices in life.
Around that time, I also became aware how much our choices are influenced by the societies we live in.
I didn't know that you were rather precocious.
Of course, I did not think in those terms, but I noticed that what people consider universal truths are not so. I came to that conclusion from observing daily activities, such as eating, dressing, and greeting. As far as I know, what licorice is in Sweden is what chocolate is in UK. Ice cream is a favorite all over the world, but its ranking differs. It is pretty normal to have chocolate sprinkles on your bread for breakfast if you happen to be a Dutch child, but your British mother may not allow you to have "chocolate for breakfast."
Just because that's "not what we do."
Most of the time, people make choices unconsciously or think that they do not have any other option. But that is often because they are bound by social conventions. We think that we rationally form our opinion, but are deeply affected by personal experiences.
If you had never learned, at age seven, that the baby-faced, bachelor clerk at the post office eloped with the wife of the postmaster and she left three kids behind, you would have different thoughts about life. That kind of a thing?
Or, your classmate stops coming to school one day, because she is kidnapped and you never see her again. It could even be fleeing from the secret police knocking on the door of your house.
What about falling flat on your face near L'Arc de Triomphe in Paris?
Let's ignore that one... Going back to the issue of how much time is already gone, I am now keenly aware that if I do B now, I will not have the time to do C in my life. I have lived long enough to know that project B will take as long as project A did, leaving no time for project C. I also know how much effort and attention project A required, and wonder if I am ready to go through the same for B or C. I have never thought about my activities in this way, and it's plain awful.
You used to take up whatever you wanted to without thinking much about its consequences.
And with gusto!
Many paths are closed permanently for you anyway, simply because it is too late in your life to start training, for example, to become a gymnast even if you had the talent to become one.
In that sense, the choices have greatly diminished at around age five and again around age ten, but that is not how we see our lives when we are so young. There must have been the last day when you used a diaper, but you don't think at that very instance, "Gee, I'm getting so old that I don't need a diaper any longer. I'm a step closer to the end."
One minute today is still of the same length as a minute was five years ago, but it starts to feel as if time were accelerating.
The sign of old age is not wrinkles, baldness, or the internal clock gone amok, but the realization that you will be leaving this world with a list of things that you would love to do, but have no time for.
Or, talent for that matter. Don't worry, you made the right decision by not trying to go to the Olympics as a gymnast. Why not look at the list of your accomplishments, by the way?
I put it in the recycling bin.
I meant figuratively!
I am beginning to understand what an older friend of mine said some time ago. To end your life graciously is a major undertaking.
Without regret, but also without too much of self-justification.
Ideally, you should be fully functional and willing to live until the day before your death and perfectly happy to leave the next day.
Self-immolation, duel, and suicide-bombing may fit your criteria...
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