Time

What is it about time? Or rather, I guess, what is it about my time? As in: I don't have any.

That's why this blog has laid (lied? lain?) fallow for so long. It's not like I don't want to do it. Far from it; I really want to exercise my independent writing skills in a way controlled by me, expressing the thoughts and concepts that friends and family have now tired of hearing. (Imagine living with that guy who suddenly comes up, without preface, to talk about how the White House staff should be restructured, or what the future of journalism might be, or how we could get to Mars without being killed by cosmic rays in the process. I realize it's a bit bizarre, and do try to spare them.)

But I digress. I'm trying, but I just never seem to have the time. There are a handful of potential entries in the bin here, helpfully labeled with a little red "Draft." My favorite, the one I really wish I had some real time to craft, consists only of a half-dozen internet links to various long think pieces, all of which I want to string together to express a concept of my own on where journalism and society and, specifically, photojournalism have gone. I call it "I Blame You." Intrigued?  Me too.

But maybe that title is also part of a solution. I need to carve out time for things. However, despite what physics (which says all of time already exists) or philosophy might say, my pie seems of a finite size, and by the time I do work (incredibly time consuming), the stuff in support of work (also time consuming), family and home demands, other various responsibilities ... well, about the only thing I manage to force is about a cumulative hour of sitting still in an effort to not do anything, because that's necessary too.

So: writing. Where do I find, where do I force, where do I carve out the time for writing? And art? And personal projects?

Afterword

Shortly after posting this, I realized I had left one massive question unanswered: So how did I get the time to write this entry?

Put simply: I worked an hour of overtime yesterday, which corporate hates, so the bosses asked me to start my day late today. Unfortunately, I found out about this only after getting up at my usual 5:30 am, which I probably would have had to do anyhow in order to take care of the many tasks required to get my girl off to school, but now there's an extra hour in the interim. Hence: the time to write.