Persistence of Time

By Paul Roberts

Carol and I like to say that sowing seed journaling is a good tool to use to break through the resistance we sometimes feel getting in the way of our creativity. I’m taking a risk here and sharing a sample of my most focused, non-stop, stream of consciousness journaling from a busy period this summer.

I am a creature to whom time matters. That is the thing that sets me apart from other creatures, and it also sets me apart from the Creator. Time. Mine seems to be extremely limited. Time matters. For Remy, the main character in the novel I’d love to spend time writing, time matters in two minute increments (maybe you’ll read about him someday). For me, it is 16 hour increments of time, assuming I’m asleep by 10 pm and Cleo lets me sleep until 5 am.

Two Cleo walks each day equals another hour gone. I’m down to 15 hours left.

My morning pages/sowing seeds journal each morning. Getting it down to 30 minutes would be nice. I’ve been missing my Pastor Eugene and Henri Nouwen reading. It would be nice to do that. 30 minutes. I’m down to 14 hours.

Let’s call the next category outside yard work and chores. In the summertime, 1 hour. 13 left.

Daily inside chores? 30 minutes.

Morning devotions and quality time with Carol? 30 minutes. 12 hours.

Grow Me a Story (GMAS) work, daily. Hm. Let’s guess that it ends up averaging 2 hours daily. 10.

Fixing and eating meals. 1 hour. 9.

Napping. 1 hour. (Hey, I’m old) 8.

You’ve worked yourself down to an 8 hour workday. How much of that do you really use? Certainly not 8 hours. How much of that could you use for writing? Not GMAS writing, but your own writing, crafting whatever you choose to craft? Right now, on a daily basis, the answer is none.

I’d like to work in one hour for fitness. Intentional, planned, organized fitness for a man of my age and condition. 7.

Does leisure, pleasure, go into the list? It probably should, although some of the categories have their own unique leisure/pleasure elements. How much to give yourself  each day? 2 hours. I’m down to 5.

Back to your personal writing time. In this case, poetry or novel writing. Right now, realistically, you are probably not fit to write for more than two hours. Your writing brain may not handle much more than that, but you don’t really know. But that would take me down to 3 hours.

Three hours for service to others?

Three hours for the miscellaneous but necessary things that come up in a day?

We are creatures of time. Stuck in time. It’s why Jesus came to the earth, to experience time. The universe only knows time on a colossal scale that means little to nothing to us creatures. Salvador Dali must have been thinking about the human condition when he painted that clock melting painting. I wonder what it is called? (The Persistence of Memory)

I usually can’t do my Morning Pages in 30 minutes. I start my day in arrears.

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I’m looking at this journal entry and wondering if there are things I need to re-prioritize, things I should take out of the equation. I think it is healthy for me to have conversations with myself and my creative community about time. Agree? Disagree? Share your thoughts.

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