Do not waste one more second of your time on this earth, for the insects are all dying, and the ice caps are vanishing, and the oceans are filling with plastic.
This could all be gone very soon, so don’t waste it. Don’t take any part of the crackling miraculousness of this cacophony for granted, because there are missiles being targeted, and there are vast battle plans being drawn. You could look outside your window tomorrow morning and see a mushroom cloud on the horizon, and you will regret letting life’s preciousness slip through your fingers.
We do not like to think about death. We say, “I will think about death some other day. Today I must busy myself with mental chatter about nonsense and the avoidance of feeling my feelings. I would love to stare into the white skull of the human condition, but my schedule is chock full of escapism.” We push death aside, and push death aside, and push death aside. And then, one day, death pushes us aside.
One way or another, the end is coming. But if you truly, deeply engage here, you can live more life in a week than most people live in an entire lifetime. By that I do not mean that you can have more experiences, I just mean that you can experience far more moments with far more depth and clarity than someone who’s just drifting through life on autopilot. One week fully and consciously appreciated contains more lived life than an entire stay in this world from cradle to grave when it is taken for granted.
And of course you will also have far more amazing experiences than someone who isn’t directly interfacing with the moment. Necessarily you will. People are normally so paralyzed by pain, fear, guilt, shame, bitterness, anger and resentment that they stay in more or less the same holding patterns for decades, and choosing to truly live life necessarily entails ceasing the escapism strategies used to hold that paralysis in place. Truly engaging and making the very most of your time left in this world means shaking off that paralysis, leaving that job, getting that divorce, diving head over heels in love, having mind-bending, earth-shattering orgasms and letting creativity flow from you like wine, courageously feeling all the unlocked emotions as they come up in response.
One breath. Take just one fully conscious breath. Start there. It is no small thing to do this; people can go their entire lives without ever once having tried it. Take one deep, full breath and truly experience it with everything you’ve got. Begin living from there.
Come and run with the real werewolves. Come and swim with the hidden ocean angels. Let everything in this endless explosion of light and wonderment and sopping wet tenderness have a voice in your experience, and let those voices sing to the heavens.
Because (and here is the good news) that paralysis is the only thing keeping us on the path toward destruction. Our predictable patterns have been mapped out and sequenced by powerful men with cold hearts, and those patterns are being used to herd us toward helping them strip the earth of life for profit. They break us up into groups based on our fears and insecurities, and then they manipulate those groups using fearmongering and false hope. And now here we are, allowing bankers and bastards to poison the planet and march us into endless wars while clamping down on our minds ever further, and hardly anyone even understands why.
Really showing up for this life makes that impossible for them to pull off. Being fully engaged with each moment means responding consciously to everything that comes up instead of habitually reacting based on old patterns, and someone without patterns is impossible to manipulate. They can only herd the walking dead, those who are ruled by fear, those who say “I’ll believe whatever you tell me to believe, just keep letting me binge on Netflix and drink on the weekends so I don’t have to feel my feelings.” A fully present human organism who is unafraid to feel any part of life cannot be manipulated.
Whether or not the end of the world is around the corner, the fact that we’ve only got a limited time here is reason enough to be sure we are fully present for every waking moment. Don’t be like the others who come to clarity on their deathbed, saying tearfully, “Fuck. Has it always been this beautiful?”
Yes, it has. Yes, it is.
So don’t waste it. Don’t waste one more second of your time on this earth. It is self-evident that the most constructive way you can spend your time here is learning the art of fully relishing every bite of it.
So that’s it then. Let’s do this thing.
Are you ready?
Get set.
Breathe.
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25 responses to “Do Not Waste One More Second”
I found what I was looking for. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing.
thank you Caitlin!
http://www.sarkinotalari.net
Caitlin,
Just saw your take on Bush I on Lew Rockwell.
THANK YOU!
He and McCain were the same kind of slimeballs.
The world is better of without them!
It would be interesting to see the looks on their faces when they stand before their Maker and try to explain their evil, traitorous, murderous lives.
Not sure if you are lib, conserv., libertar. or what, but you really hit the nail on the head with this one!
Thank you!
JRU
Türkiye’nin en sevilen şarkı sözleri sitesine bekleriz. https://e-sarkisozleri.com/
This piece is mislabeled. It’s actually poetry.
Chapeau, dear Writer, this is helpful for all of us.
I like the perspective a lot…
And took a deep breath.
Then I remembered this song about being afraid: The Outsiders by R.E.M. (feat. Q-tip)
http://www.sarkisozlerihd.com/sarki-sozu/rem-the-outsiders/
Ahoi! Lucas
I’m begging you. Just one article without vanishing ice caps. Just one.
When you finally do see the world as it actually is and not as you think it is then your heart and mind open and you have compassion and wisdom. It’s all been right there in front of you each moment as you lived your life in the past and the future; a world of desires, aversions and delusions. There was a person, many years ago, who discovered this path to freedom.
Catlin. This is nonsense. If you do not fight you stand NO chance of having an impact. I didn’t think you were this naive. If Trump survives then you may well be a casualty. You in the US have simply NO IDEA how bad life can get.
It seems that you deliberately misunderstand Ms Johnstone’s point. Or this is so different from your way of living and thinking that you are unable to grasp what was really meant. In the later case you must feel very uncomfortable and unhappy. You have my sympathy but I don’t know how to help you or if anybody can help you.
Breath in deep, before you read this: “Five point program for Australia to survive new global crash” http://cecaust.com.au/pubs/pdfs/20181023_Five-point-program.pdf
I agree with that pdf except for #5. International cooperation for a new financial
architecture and world economic development
..
Every one of the individual national economies of the world must NOT depend upon either exporting or importing stuff — whether that stuff is TVs or weapon systems or terrestrial resources or food. The ironclad logic of this recommendation is easier to understand if one thinks of the entire world as only ONE SINGLE nation with only ONE SINGLE economy. Looking at the world in this unique way, if importing and exporting is vitally necessary for ANY economy (including the aforementioned macro-economy) in order to survive and thrive, to and from just exactly WHOM would this true macro-economy “export” and “import” — the people of Mars?!
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No. This one-economy-world (the one we are actually living in right now, even though we do/can not see it this way because of our 24/7 brainwashing) will at some point HAVE to figure out how to “go it alone”. NOT having accepted that this is necessary is IMO exactly why “the world” is going through what it is going through today. And this is why all of the individual national economies of the world should IMMEDIATELY, DELIBERATELY start “figuring out” and then implement the design of an economic system in which each individual nation is able to, at first, anyway, “go it alone” while providing a decent standard of living for its own citizens.
..
One might argue that a “fully globalized” world of individual nations importing from, or exporting to, each other would, in the end, be better prepared to go it alone “as a whole”. But all we have to do is look around at the real, fully-globalized world that is already in existence today to see how well that is going and the likely-horrible next steps in its evolution — war, more war and even more war.
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To sum up, an economic system’s design that REQUIRES imports, exports, slave labor, as well as perpetual war; while at the same time “just happens” to make its citizens “unable to afford” to pay EACH OTHER a living wage to produce the things and provide ALL the services that all citizens vitally need (including taking care of the sick, elderly or infirmed, and allowing senior citizens to retire with some basic necessities of life provided before they drop dead at their jobs) is fatally flawed.
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Even though we at the grassroots level have been carefully taught to find collective discussion of an alternative to the present economic design (in which a microscopic percentage of the population owns the vast majority of wealth and capital equipment for their own astronomical profit) repulsive, that is precisely what we are going to have to do. THERE IS NO WAY AROUND IT! We are going to have to stop bitching to each other and begging the Elite to behave better, and start discussing what the “foundation stone” of a better economic system should be. If the ultimate outcome of that discussion is that “greed is good” and “growth is God” (when the already-unsustainable human population is 7.6 billion living/consuming individuals), all we have to do is stop talking and hold on tight to the design we’ve got right now, because those are exactly its “core beliefs”.
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IMO #5 must be changed to “Develop an economic system in which Australia will be able to function completely independently from the rest of the world.” If Australians can accomplish that, THEN Australians can consider a system of BARTER (product for product, hopefully without the use of any “money” whatsoever) with other similarly independent nations of the world.
Great post! Thank you.
Caitlin, you are absolutely correct.
–
It is a privilege to experience life, – to be born,
to find our love ones after we arrive, and finally,
to depart this beautiful planet when we die;
. . . this is something that the deities,
with their immortality, cannot have.
Great post and so true. Reminds me of this lovely animated gem from years ago. It’s an odd by funny and sweet short that says exactly what you say in its own quirky way:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=90SIuISIVB8
I love all of your columns, but this is my all-time favorite!!! It was just what I needed today! Thank you!
Off to watch a movie. V Remember the 5th of November! Have a nice day! Kill ur tv
Yeesss thank you Caitlin! Live, Love, Fight, Dream!
Last line of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T S Eliot:
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
Perhaps Caitlin’s voice is human, but I am breathing still—and recalling father Adelir Antonio de Carli who tried to set a new balloon record in April 2008, by fastening a thousand helium-filled balloons to a lawn chair. His contraption caught an ocean-bound wind instead of what was expected, and his body was found in the sea in July that year. And now, with new wind in my lungs, I am adding two new last last lines (together being the first line of Eliot’s love song) to a verse that seemed apt in 2008: Borne by wind / O’er the sea / Now is my / Soul set free / Nearer my God / To thee / Where I had / Longed to be / Let’s have / A cup of tea / Let us go then/ you and I
I only wish there was some way to set this entire rollicking, badassious & bodacious hunka hunka truth to some kinda music that would get played all over the universe and reach as many folks as are reachable. We’d also need some mighty adept poet/artist/humane translators. Carry ON, darlin- you made my day and it’s only 10 AM. I’ll go to another town like every Sat. to see my young friend (23 now) whose punishment for escaping El Salvador has been more than 2 years in US immigrant detention. In her own very Christian way, she is managing to use this GRIM period, (which follows alotta tragedy) to grow in wisdom and humanity. Your message is wise and delightful. Thank you.
Caitlin, my sweet friend, you are a gifted yogini bringing us affirmation and love. You speak to our hearts and you speak truth. Can I send you a painting? What would you prefer? An abstract or a feminine divinity? I don’t go around offering to give my paintings away but you have so consistently struck the chord of wisdom and truth that I must pay homage. Please let me know
Wonderful and inspiring! Not much to add except my respect.
……….
One tiny note: Depending on personal conditions, some people may prefer to exhale completely and rest quietly then till the automatic breathing reflex starts. Exhaling could be coupled with a hightened awareness of the area below the navel, the guts (vagus nerve), and the spine, though it is better not to force anything.
This is good to be experimenting with that. One of my main t’ ai chi teachers said that exhaling is done deliberately, and inhaling follows ‘ automatically’ . Wise that you mention that this may differ between people! <3
Yesterday at 10 am where I breath, it got so dark out the lights went on at the gas station signaling it was night time! Have a nice day! Free Assange? Phuck, there is a lot of shit coming down. Voting does not change it. We are born to die, and good luck to those who are in Hospice and want to move on. MoveOn is a bs org. BDS. Don’t Fuck with Mother Earth or Father Sky! Have a nice day, or night! Exhale… ENJOY
Hey Chucky, you have a lovely lovely day too..or nite 🙂