Last night, while listening to an Amazon Music station’s selection of soft, soothing piano music, my mind conjured an idea for a huge graphic that would illustrate the enormity of the scope of words that relate to Time. In the absence of the concept of Time, many of those words would be meaningless. At the center of the graphic, the word—Time—would stand out in large, bold letters. Radiating out in a circle from that word would be those time-dependent words. For example, on one side of Time, the word ‘Now’ would be opposite the word ‘Then’ on the other side. And then, the floodgates would open, encircling Time with so, so many others:
Always—Never—Soon—Today—Tomorrow—Yesterday—Eventually—Previously—Afterward—Future—Past—Eternally—Present—Ever—When—Before—After—Late—Early—Second—Minute—Hour—Week—Fortnight—Month—Year—Decade—Century—Millennium—Forever—Eon—Concurrent—Perpetual—Consecutive—Subsequent—Simultaneous—Calendar—Clock—Birthday—Holiday…and on and on.
This list probably represents only a portion of the linguistic entanglements with Time. The circular graphic might make an intriguing large-scale mural on a windowless side of a big commercial building. I am a fan of murals and other façade art. One of my favorite art-related websites is Street Art Utopia. There’s something about street art that can give me a glimmer of hope for humankind; but some street art can dash that hope into a million pieces.
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Lately, I have read several articles about the Sarco (short for sarcophagus) Pod, an assisted-suicide machine designed by Philip Nitschke, a doctor who later became CEO of Exit International. An article on HuffPost, written by Nitschke, most among my most recent exposures to the concept of the device. The pod, intended to be produced using a 3-D printer, is served by a nitrogen gas cannister which releases nitrogen into the pod. Supporters claim the device works quickly and comfortably, inducing nitrogen hypoxia within a very short time. The CEO of Last Resort, a strong advocacy organization for ‘right to die’ and ‘death with dignity’ initiatives, Florian Willet, committed suicide in May 2025 after leading efforts to legalize euthanasia as an individual’s right. He had been arrested in September 2024 for his role in supporting/ assisting a 64-year-old woman from the United States who had used the machine. Willet was released from police custody in December 2024. I do not know how he ended his life. Nitschke, the designer (and others) fiercely advocate for giving individuals the right to determine their own time and means of death. He opposes the medical model of support (when it is given) only for those suffering terminal prognoses. Forcing people wo wait until they may be in excruciating pain before authorizing their right to die (or never giving that authorization) seems (to me) cruel and antithetical to the Hippocratic Oath. Decisions about one’s death do not belong in the hands of government—not any more than do decisions about whether to bring life into the world.
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Some people who spend time around me often remark that I do not talk much. Conversations may buzz around me, but I tend not to insert myself into them with any frequency. I listen. I observe. If I participate, it’s usually to a rather limited extent. My involvement would be greater if I thought I had something of value to add to the discussion, but I rarely have that “added value” to contribute. Even when I have something I think might add to the mix, though, I avoid intruding in conversations that seem to be moving along quite nicely—and with few pauses—without me. Mostly, though, I think I my tendency to avoid injecting my thoughts into discussions is due to the fact that I am not a fast thinker. That is, I prefer to allow thoughts to develop slowly—by the time they have matured to a level at which I am confident, the conversation has moved on to other subjects. I say “I prefer…to develop slowly,” but it may be that “I have no other choice than to allow my thoughts to develop slowly.” In other words, I am not fast on my feet. I think much faster with my fingers on the keyboard. I doubt I would feel nearly as comfortable with a keyboard had I not acquiesced to my mother’s urging, while I was in junior high school, to take a typing class. Before I leave the subject…several people know I can readily abandon my silence in the right circumstances, to the extent they would gleefully muzzle me just to bask in the quiet.
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Next week’s weather will return the fireplace to both its aesthetic and its utilitarian roles. Temperatures in the mid-70s in recent days have caused the value of a warming fire to decline. But we are told to expect frigid temperatures and howling winds next week, so bundling up in front of the fireplace will be attractive again. Cold weather creates in me a craving for hearty soups and spicy chili, along with a desire to relocate to more hospital climes. A conversation a few nights ago about locations that have near “perfect” weather included mentions of the California cities of Oakland and San Diego. Unfortunately, the cost of living in both places makes living in them prohibitively expensive for most people. Good weather and well-designed and well-maintained infrastructures attract people, driving demand for housing ever higher and increasing density to the point of discomfort. With our nation’s recent abandonment of climate protections and the government’s advanced levels of financial mismanagement, though, we are doing our part to make such places unlivable and well-beyond-unaffordable, therefore, unappealing. The problem of density, then, will be resolved and homelessness will be addressed wave after wave of additional poverty-driven relocations to more affordable places. Those places, of course, will then suffer from growing densities of destitute former city dwellers, declining tax bases, and burgeoning homelessness. No, no, no! that’s just nonsense! We can always count on greed and cruelty to solve our problems, so there’s no need to worry.
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At what point does humankind rebound with explosive resolve to tackle the worst of the problems facing us? When does individual greed give way to collective benevolence? Are hatred and love cyclical…that is, do humans grow weary of one in favor of the other and then repeat the process in reverse? The only power we have is the power we use.
