“It was the summer of 1996, early June, and I was teaching a course at Simmons College in Boston to make some extra dough. Jennifer was clerking for a lawfirm down in Dallas, pregnant with our first child. My dad called. He and my mom were in London, where they had rented a small flat for a month. Did I want to come over and stay for a few days? As it happened, I had five days free, perfect for a long weekend trip. I walked down to a cheapo travel agency on Boylston (yes, a physical travel agency), and found a ticket for $600 or thereabouts. Seemed like a lot. I could have afforded it, by which I mean there was room on my credit card to buy it, not that I could really afford it. $600 was a lot of money to me. That said, I hadn’t seen my parents since Christmas, and my dad sounded so … happy. This was a special trip for them, a chance to LIVE in a city that my father LOVED, and this was my chance to share it with them. But $600. I dunno. I called my father and told him that I just couldn’t swing it. He understood. He was a very practical guy. The call lasted all of 20 seconds. You know, international long distance being so expensive and all.
I never saw my father again. He died a few weeks after he and my mother got home.
Tick-tock.
Yeah, I know a few things about Time.
I know that the moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.
I know that I would give anything to go back to that week in June 1996 and buy that stupid ticket that I couldn’t “afford” but really I could afford and spend five more days with my father and not do anything special but just BE with him and share a beer at that pub that he mentioned on the phone but that I just can’t remember the name of no matter how hard I try and it’s weird but that’s what bugs me most of all.”
Ben Hunt, Epsilon Theory
Ben Hunt is a very direct writer and thinker. When I read him, I feel as if he is angry with me — in an urgent and helpful way.
This is the second time I’ve come across this part of his essay series called “The Long Now“, which I’m just starting to read in full, but it grabbed me — I mean in that aggressive way — just as well this time too.
The future hasn’t really become a threat, rather than a promise, to me yet but I feel his urgency to buy the plane ticket and go on the trip.
To live — really, live! — is to believe in and plan for the future but not wait around for it.