Just like every single person in the world we have been present in our lives for every second of every minute of every hour of every day since we took our first breath. Every person we have ever met or passed by that is still alive right now has been present in their own lives doing whatever they’ve been doing for all this time. Every second. Once we leave people we forget all about them for the most part while their lives move second by second on with whatever they do for the whole time as we live on ourselves. I’m only writing this because when I see famous people on TV or wherever, I can see the changes in their faces and wonder what the hell they’ve been doing while I was busy doing all the things I’ve been doing. Every insignificant thing I’ve done, people I once knew and haven’t seen in decades were doing things wherever they were and neither of us ever considered each other or what they might have been doing. I wonder what exactly David Hasslehoff is doing right this second. I don’t care, I just momentarily wondered because— what’s he doing? I remember this really cute 10 year old girl back in 1969 (or so) I couldn’t take my eyes off of. Relax-I was in 5th grade too. She used to wear really really miniskirts and love to do cartwheels on recess break. That was 53 years ago….what has she been doing all these seconds I wonder? She was a sixties hippy child and when 6th grade came along she was my old lady for a few months. Her family moved to Florida and I never heard of her ever again. I looked up her name just so I wouldn’t be talking about a long dead girl and found she was alive and well somewhere in Florida with a slew of kids and grand kids. She actually looked like a 63 year old version of the same kid…..girl…woman, whatever. 1,667,973,600 seconds ago I was watching her do cartwheels in her tan miniskirt behind Sand Lake School in ’69. I don’t know if my math is right or even close but who cares…..that’s a lot of seconds to be doing who knows what. Well, judging by the grand children I could probably account for a few certain things she may have been doing. People I have long forgotten from work. People from the military. School. All of them functioning and doing stuff the whole time while I went about my time doing my stuff. And over all this time I can’t possibly be sure I have ever passed by any of them totally unaware of who they were.
I may or may not have ever met this guy. Could’ve been an old roommate when I was in the service. Maybe the kid I threw a bowl of spaghetti at in High School during a food fight. Or a guy at the butcher shop I made small talk with a few years ago. Or none of the above. Insignificant but something to think about perhaps. One thing for sure I can say with a certain amount of certainty is every second of every minute mattered to every single person still alive today at this moment whether we’ve met them or not. Everybody’s time is as important as anyone else’s so I guess my point is that if we really want to be a significant memory in anyone’s mind it will only be good for a second or two and it will be gone until a smell or a sound or an experience brings it back momentarily. Sorry for wasting these few minutes you spent waiting for this article to make any sense….I’m sure I’ll forget ever writing it minutes from now…
Flatstronomy 