What a Waste of Time

I've been wasting time. Day after geezer day I've done nothing. As it turns out, the rest of the world has hurried along without me. Important things have gone on. And important people have reacted to those things. The "revolution" in the Middle East is at a beginning. Egypt, Iran, Libya. Oil prices are going up, economies are crashing. While all this is going on, I look outside and notice that the wind is blowing. And I wonder what the date is. Is February finally over? Is it even possible to "waste" time? As I use up time, I am using up my life. Is having time in my past better than having time in my future? If I could be twenty years old again would I want that, so that I could have more time?. If I waste time playing solitaire, is there something immoral about that? I could be doing something productive somewhere. Maybe helping someone? Is watching a football game on TV a better use of time than playing solitaire? Is watching a football game live in the stadium a better use of time than watching it on TV? Is one man's time more valuable than another's? If the president plays a game of solitaire surely he wastes more time than if I do. But if the president plays solitaire, the essence of the game of solitaire changes. It might become popular. Someone might report the results of the solitaire game in the media. Then when I play solitaire it might not be viewed by my peers in the same waste- of- time way. When we fault Nero for fiddling while Rome burned, we're not saying fiddling is a waste of time. Only in some situations. Yet we have the expression "fiddling around", which obviously came from that legend. There's a Chinese proverb about the humble man frying a fish. It asks the question whether his activity is any less important than any other. So it seems that the value of time is relative. It depends on who's spending the time. And what the activity is. And what activity is being neglected. All I want to do is play solitaire. Without feeling guilty. So I'll quote Bertrand Russell: "The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." And finally, Ralph Waldo Emerson. "To fill the hour, that is happiness, and leave no crevice for repentance or approval".