I’ve been thinking a lot about reason, faith and time. And not very much about Oxford commas. It’s morning in May for a few more seconds. I’m in a state that is sloganly for “lovers”. The VA but not the VA. There are people walking by. With a dog. There’s a hot pastrami sandwich, with provolone, being constructed right now. It’s for me. Because I’ve used reason and time to acquire a sandwich commitment, and I have faith in that commitment. I’ll take the sandwich to the waterfront to enjoy what is now a beautiful afternoon in May. The sun is shining with only a few wispy obstructions. And I’m mobile, both in the Internetty sense and in the bicycle-ish sense.
One day in May follows another. Reason abides. The sun comes up and out. Faith resides. And one moment follows another. Time presides.
Bike tires. I’m confused as to why they have air inside tubes inside the tires. Feels like old technology. But changing tires is cathartic and new tires are easy to acquire, with very little faith-commitment.
I’m staccato today. Short paragraphs after losing some writing muscle. It has been several mornings in May past since I have used my fingers to translate my brain-electricity into English. It’s a translation exercise that I enjoy, but it is a metabolic process that flows most easily after exercising regularly. Similar to sprinting. Or marathoning.
And there it is: time is the denominator in so many reason-questions. And how shall it divide? It certainly divides me from other people. It seems to divide other people from other people. When something cannot be given to me instantly when I’ve acquired a commitment to receive it, there is guilt and embarrassment. And I’m not in a hurry, so I wish for there to be calm and joy. But the acquisition of commitments has a time element. Because, as in contracts, there is time-consideration in all agreements. Perhaps that’s why I’m so disagreeable.
I’m biking around a district that does not have voting rights, through the lands that house the people who come in, make and break agreements, and then go back home to these lands where voting has weight. Perhaps that feels vague, but so does voting. Even if it’s entirely binary.
This chapter’s time feels heavy; it’s heaving against the numerator, pulling the whole equation down. But fortunately, I’m writing down the pixelated page. And while you’re possibly reading across physical paper pages or listening to a voice that is coming across your consciousness, if you do have the e-book to follow along with your faithful audio book reader, you can see the pixels going down and down and down. Though you probably have to flip the pages across as well. Prepositions are the slashes, the angle of the fraction’s dividing line, between time and the numerator.
What’s in the numerator? Well, if you’re a reasonable person, probably happiness, wealth, friendship, family, or asset price. If you’re unreasonable, it might be faith. If you’re neither reasonable nor unreasonable, the slash disappears and the numerator and the denominator merge and then shatter into a million little, uncountable pieces (a million being a reasonable estimate for the piece-count). When time no longer counts and prepositions no longer divide, what’s left?
A greasy keyboard and a sandwich that’s well on its way to being faithfully digested by billions of gut bacteria. They’re quite reasonable creatures.
Roman Ryan 