The Butterfly of the Moment

Name it and claim it. That’s the preacher’s promise. Alright. Here you go: ‘Free Time.’ Now, where is it? That’s the question. What’s the answer?

**********

‘Free time,’ what’s that? I ponder the question while washing dishes, up to my elbows in suds. My free time has been mortgaged to the mundane.

My work product is subject to inspection. The accusation of being labeled a domestic Pharisee, one who washes only the outside of the pots, is a reputation hard to live down.

Such chores are best done in a dark laundry room where Munch’s painting, The Scream, sets the tone. Certainly not one with a view of the glistening, sunlit pool, a mirage that mocks my low estate. Free time is written all over the scene.

Some suggest that free time can be found anywhere, even washing dishes. Nonsense. I’m not convinced. Free time and labor cannot co-exist. Or can they? The Heavy Hand Judge pronounced this primordial curse on our progenitors when He sent them packing to the back alleys outside Eden.

Maintenance is real. Add up the hours, see for yourself. Life overwhelms us. Beating back the onslaught of nature and the ills that flesh is heir to is so daily. Not to mention trying to keep up with the Kardashians and enduring political campaigns.

So where’s free time? Thorstein Veblen attempted to consecrate the concept of leisure, railing on the Vatican to elevate it to sainthood. The perfecting of this idol has long since been an American art form.

Emerson and his Harvard elites enthroned the nebulous concept of transcendentalism as some sort of ‘be all, end all’ in the pursuit of free time. But what did all that heavy thinking get him? Poor health, that’s what.

Like most Yankees, he eventually migrated south. In Charleston he recovered. Seems the thick humidity dulled his senses. One evening on the Battery he experienced a transcendental epiphany while eating shrimp and grits, the absolute apotheosis in the use of free time. He abandoned meditation and lived happily ever after.

Epicurus had his own entourage of Greek groupies. He advocated pleasure as the highest good that should dominate all free time. But he got crossways with Aphrodite by admonishing the Greeks that the benefits of eating were preferable to the benefits of love. He would be a gilded shrine today had he realized one simple fact: a combination of the two is the epitome in the enjoyment of free time.

Yoga promises an out-of-body freedom from the ravages of time. Gurus with online degrees swear by the ‘down-dog’ pose. If held for ten minutes, they guarantee it will produce nirvana, an enlightened state of mind.

They’re correct. Try it. But remember, the Sanskrit meaning of nirvana is ‘blown out,’ which is what will happen to your shoulders. An aged Grand Cru and saucer of escargot is a superior and safer way to achieve the same enlightenment.

I suppose free time is possible in athletic obsessions. You hear a lot about the so-called ‘runner’s high.’ I’ve had the experience. It’s a mental delusion when your brain sees automobiles as phantoms, fogs that you can run right through. Following that advice will assure you of unlimited free time in the ER. Avoid it.

Athletic pursuits for free time have their benefits. They’ve spawned profitable career paths in prosthetic orthopedic medicine. Which is not medicine at all, but more like a patchwork repair job to arthritic bodies. The preferred training for this profession is a degree in auto mechanics at the community trade school. It’s more art than science. Beware.

Alas, free time comes with a string attached. It’s only a loan, a short-term one at that. Interest must be paid. Which usually comes in the form of cutting the nap short. Blame the Puritans for the hangover of the collective guilty conscience.

Boiled down, free time is less a sense of place than a state of being. It’s possible anywhere. It’s a yielding to the present moment in whatever condition it finds us. Even washing dishes.

**********

As I head out to the pool to find my nirvana, I hear a voice call, “Honey, would you do me a favor when you have some free time.” Some things never change.

Free time is fleeting. Take a slow walk in the garden of your life, pick some flowers and let your net capture the ephemeral butterfly of the moment.


Bud Hearn
March 18, 2016