The Last Sapien | the dog years we live

The dog years we live | (Dedicated to my friend Mark whom is often loses the sense of time)

Not once in his stories my friend mentions that 'this story happened a five years ago, but could easily be eight years back . . .' there are no global events that he uses as milestones to hold on to making sense to his life line. In most part it doesn't really matter, unless these had to do with anything that happens right now - but for the sake of accuracy we all fall into this trap as years go by and hmmmm . . . we grow older.

It was just this morning that I overheard a call my wife had with a friend about something she was involved in, realizing it was not even a year since it happened, but feels like way back then. In the times we live in where we develop a Stockholm syndrome towards ourselves as we hold ourselves captives avoiding other people as much as possible for the fear of Corona, anything that we do becomes a milestone. As insignificant and nonsense as loading dishes or making an omelet, is now becoming a milestone in a day, a phone call made, a short ride out. In usual times these are ultra transparent and invisible, as way bigger things are happening in our life, but they do have a larger gap between them.

The new daily milestones end up having us counting time in Dog Years, where the time since the beginning of the year feels like years back, after all we are already in the sixth' dog year from the turn of the decade. On one hand this is what the 'hear and now' folks are preaching about - concentrate on the now to avoid the overwhelming notion that everything is fu@ed making our life look like a derailed freight train, so we learn to count the little things that our day is made off, being thankful for our ability to breath. These are all great things, but we really turn our empty life to what our beloved dog is experiencing, nevertheless how to time our life. What a mess !?!

Not sure how long it will take us to get back to our 'old counting' and box the insignificants where they belong. Am not suggesting I am behind bars in a rotten basement, I do go out and about. But mentally with all the variable distancing we keep, where everyone is potentially a social threat, Dog Years is what we count. Woof, Woof.