ID NUmber 97 All this talk about time busts the seams of my brain (by the way, everyone should learn how to sew because it, like knitting, is very theraputic and much more productive). It seems that nearly every single day I have at least one conversation about time and the meaning of it. It's always "When I leave for college" or "do you remember when" or "time flies huh?". It makes me wonder if there is too much emphasis on a not so solid thing.

So the Christian says my soul will last for eternity. That thought alone is enough to make me fear existance because i can't see myself wanting to live another thousand years let alone another hundred. Today, I can do. Actually, a hole lot of today's I can handle. But next month? That doesn't seem nearly as fun. I love living, dont get me wrong, but time in a hump like that seems like a heardle I don't have the energy to handle.

Then the unfortunately doomed pesimist says that one day in the future (because obviously whoever is speaking is not dead now) we will all meet an end to being and then whatever soul we possess will cease and thus so will out version of time. But as much as I dislike the idea of eternal being, I even more disagree with perishment. To think that everything accomplished and every reality will be gone with nothing to offer other than some "history of impact" which, by the way, is itself something unreal because the past is only a memory!!

Now, a new look on time is the Buddhist who, despite his apparent belief in reincarnation, argues that "all time is now". Tomorrow is an idea, yesterday is a memory and even now is past. SO to consider tomorow is to worry about something that may not even exist. Even though this may puzzle me because I live by a standard of time (what I want to accomplish in the future, who I have been to people in the past, what I represent of my current beliefs), this one is the least emotionally distressing because if offers no direct controversy to me.

But of all the beliefs on time, I most enjoy my father's. I directly asked my friend one time if she really believed her soul would live on for eternity and she replied 'yes, and it scares me" even when this individual fully believed that eternity would be in heaven, a place of peace and rest. My dad suggested a different outlook. "The biblie says The kingdom of heaven is now" he said "and so I like to think that each day we live is part of eternity". At first is sounds simple but then I understood. We can live each day like today because we can survive today. After all, today is where we build our kingdom of heaven. "Some days are hell, and some days are heaven and I like to try and make them heaven".

Sure, I believe in heaven and hell. Yes I agree with the Buddhist that time is now. And of course, I will die, and my time will thus end. As for time? Time will disappear, and I will exist in a day like today, where the future is an idea and the past irrelevant, because today is like heaven to me.  ¶ 4:07 PM