Thought Picnic: In the days of useful ideas

Hour after hour

The days come and go, 24 hours ticking by with the concern whether much has been done or achieved. How minutes turn into hours as a perpetual movement of the ever-present that was the future in the last minute remains both the mundane and a mystery.

That passage of time is captured in the Today, the Thomas Carlyle poem that is also in the Anglican Hymnal, but I think I first heard it in primary school and that school in Bukuru, Jos was not religious at all. [Poetry Foundation - Today, Thomas Carlyle] [Hymnary – So here hath been dawning]

So here hath been dawning
Another blue Day:
Think wilt thou let it
Slip useless away.

Out of Eternity
This new Day is born;
Into Eternity,
At night, will return.

Behold it aforetime
No eye ever did:
So soon it forever
From all eyes is hid.

Here hath been dawning
Another blue Day:
Think wilt thou let it
Slip useless away.

Slipping out of done

That is my enduring fear, the many days that I probably, possible, inadvertently, deliberately, or lazily allowed to slip useless away, with no ability to redeem my time apart from working in the hope that the newly allotted day from eternity slips into the eternal past with a mark of achievement and the fulfilment of purpose.

In my frail and errant humanity, other weaknesses emerge, desires I should tamp down, ambitions I should aerate and allow to find the winds of inspiration and determination to execute. I have been thinking lately where ideas come from, the wellspring of thoughts that can be used to change things, make things, see things, do things, to the benefit of both myself and humanity.

Growing ideas

I have toyed with the idea of returning to school, I have learnt a lot in a structured environment as well as build new networks for connections, projects and friendships. I need to read more accessing diverse topics to broaden the spectrum of my ideas landscape. Maybe, I try too hard when I should ease myself into a comfortable use of my mind.

There are no easy answers, but one thing I know is my honeymoon with procrastination must end, my dalliance with good intentions that rarely proceeds beyond that is unhealthy, I need to regain the joy of adventure in learning and practice, I yearn for a daily record of the useful with the knowledge that next would be better. Somewhere in there is both the joy of living and the inerrant pursuit of happiness.

Eighth of February in my mind

Time waits for no one

Between observing the heavenly bodies and hearing the ticking away of the clock, we set a watch or order that counts the seconds, minutes and hours, for what we see as day and night that in its number is the week and the month and ultimately the year.

For some the passage of time is arbitrary, yet there are cycles, the seasons, the movements of the weather, the expectation of sun, cloud and rain, we exist on earth to count our blessings. For there is birth of one and events in life, some significant, others less so, all woven into a story of existence and experience, we serve a sentence of living tethered to mother Earth until the day we are no more.

Time is for memories

We become a memory, some good deeds lost in the sand dunes weathered by winds of change and some ugly deeds etched indelibly in rocks that never age, we can only endure by those we’ve touched by love, by indifference, through our humanity or the lack of it. Memories are wells from which bitter or sweet waters are drawn to drink or flush, each reckoning journaled for eternity – the passing of time from infinity to infinity, we harbouring a section in that unfathomable spectrum.

In the counting of the years are matters of import, of holidays and anniversaries, of remembrance and ceremony, the dates and days carry different meanings and symbolisms, age is not just a number that changes as we slumber.

On this day, just eight years ago, I posted my first tweet on Twitter.

I am now a twit on twitter ...

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) February 8, 2009

Time is for reflection

On this day, a year after that, I buried a dear friend whose 58^th birthday would have been two days later. It was very sad and he is fondly remembered.

On the same day, the service was in a church on a freezing February morning, well attended by many from far and near, it was a worthy sending off because Dick was a man of many talents and influences and he drew people from all countries, cultures, and walks of life. We exited the chapel after his remains to the world music of a Senegalese performer, he probably would have wanted us to dance.

Blog - Seeing Dick Off

Time is for remembrance

After the service, I could not wait to witness his committal to earth, for in the early afternoon, I had an appointment for what was my 7^th chemotherapy session.

I got to the hospital and for all we tried, having come in from the cold, they could not find a vein to pump in the poison that killed the cancer and spared my life.

When they finally did, I sat through 45 minutes of it and though 8 sessions were scheduled and a 9^th was being planned, that session of chemotherapy became my last and the beginning of my life after cancer.

Blog - Almost in vain for a vein

And so, that makes the Eighth day of February, a day of blessing and stories, did I say that 26 years ago, today gave us the first day of significantly heavy snow in London? How do I remember these things? I’m a man of the times that pass and the memories that stick. [Weather 1991]

Thought Picnic: Painful hours of nothing done

Waiting in vain

He is at the point where exasperation is plumbing the depths of incredulity as the simplest task is gaining layers of complexity that defies logic.

It is not rocket science if the people with the responsibility get on with it and do their jobs, but as one expects somebody to do the job, everybody thinks anybody can do it but nobody ends up doing it and with that comes email churn with all the traffic but not progress still.

No matter how much those who matter fume with anger and fury, there isn’t much one can do to tackle disinterest and indifference borne of petty rivalries played out by minions of an organisation.

Hours by nothing

Being brought up on the principle of dignity in labour and the honest application of self to duty for which one can be handsomely remunerated, it does not sit well to be present without the presence of productive activity to justify one’s keep even though the situation is no fault of the principal.

As the middle management ran around like headless chickens making some bend over backwards to the extreme to fulfil some fleeting purpose, contrast was drawn between one and the other.

Doing hours for nothing can somewhat be more painful than doing nothing for hours neither case is comfort for anyone, whether things will change is left to hope forlorn, they don’t work like we once thought they should.

40 hours this week

Regaining some verve

After the 16 hours of work last week, I got up for a new week unsure of how I would pull through my first full week of work in almost a year.

I got given some tasks that were a tad repetitive; repetition is fine for a finite number of systems but for a large number your approach has to change to consider automation.

There is usually no time for something sophisticated but a crude set of algorithms to batch together those tasks and produce a result you can clean up and use is fine.

I did not seem to have lost the knack for doing the absurd to get the sometimes incredible and soon I had completed the activity.

Breaking the week

By the end of Tuesday, I got home and literally crashed out, I got home and just went straight to bed, exhausted, and tired but unable to attain rapid eye movement but another inspired thought crossed my mind.

Just about 8 weeks from 5 months of chemotherapy, it appeared I was pushing my envelope of recuperation, everyone had been saying I should take it easy, apart from friends, the hospital staff had been on my case.

So, I had a chat to the programme manager of the project and was granted the request of having Wednesdays off having consulted with all interested parties – the idea being breaking the week in two meant I had some recovery time giving me some balance.

Albeit, I did complete a 40-hour week, though towards the end, I felt I was wilting but in all, there were incidental insights into certain bottlenecks that saved some situations.

Getting in the flow

And though I am just a technical hand helping others I suddenly found myself working with aspects that were my key area of expertise and then to learn that the environment was built and managed by an ex-colleague whose activities I once oversaw – the world is a very small place and reputations are just priceless.

I also found the social and communicative part of the technical persona coming out in certain discussions, I am usually for full disclosure that allows users to understand how things might affect them; the jury is usually out on that in the heat of the moment but hindsight always prove that the best approach and experience shows I have kept my job for being informative where heads might have rolled.

No worries for form on forms

Whilst I did make it through the week, I also had to register as an employee of my company which was an inscrutable online application process that my highly educated native Dutch-speaking neighbour found extraneous – spare a thought for those of us who have to tackle double Dutch.

That request was granted which allows me to send my timesheets, invoice charging value-added tax, and other documents to my client I did wonder how I would make it to work on Thursday knowing it would all run out on Wednesday but following the advice of “a day at a time” from my good friends, the unemployment benefit part of my entitlements which just covers a month arrived on Wednesday.

Phew!

A long weekend, and without the mobile phone alarm to alarm me in the morning, I was up in time, but realised there was no need to prepare for work, I rolled over and …