Tick-tock.

[paragraph left intentionally blank]

[Time to gather your thoughts]

[Scratch that. No plan. It always works best that way. Just start writing, the thoughts will come pouring down your fingers, every keystroke bringing memories, dreams, abstracts from the past]

Tick-tock. The clock hands swaying their eternal dance. Spinning wildly while an Irish song tells its story in the background. It’s got to be a good one – we’re spinning along with it. Dancing. For the moment, yet for the future. For life. The clock hands keep on chasing each other as if their fate is not to be together only 24 seconds a day. We are so much like them – dancing for the moment, yet rushing for the next one. We keep on dreaming of another moment to come. Painting it with an old brush that has begun fading around the edges. But the brush still works fine. It’s merely a tool for a great artist to paint the wildest picture that will ever be, using the brightest colors of our thoughts. The moment is gone. Another one has come to replace it. The clock hands keep on dancing. No matter what, time will keep on moving and so does our life. Second after second, moment after moment, it’s so short, yet every moment counts as forever.

Since when did we start counting the time? Perceiving our life as a timer spinning crazily towards that mystical moment when everything is going to end. It wasn’t always like that, remember? If you’re able to recall a moment of your childhood, chasing a ray of sunlight in the fields, and having thoughts about the end of life, nobody’s going to believe you. Because when you were in that field you dreamed of growing up, becoming an astronaut, going to that bar where the amber lights dance like tiny snowflakes on the colorful glass bottles. Where the Irish band is singing. You dreamed of having a job, driving a car, probably becoming rich. Well, here you are. What are you dreaming of now? Better job? You know that astronaut thing never really worked out, you had to put up with being like everyone else. Putting the hours, selling your daily 9 to 5 clock hands tango for a few banknotes. Dreaming of vacation, when you’ll have it all back. All the time will be yours, you’ll sit in bed all day or travel the world for a month. Good plan, too bad it won’t last forever. Wait, what was that? Gotcha! You’re thinking about it again, aren’t you? Somewhere along the lines of your carefree existence you started thinking about the end of it. The grand finale, that seems so far away, yet it’s closer than ever, because it’s a true one-way road.

At the end of the day, we humans, like to do that. We need to have a plan, to dream about what’s going to come. Even in the best seconds of our lives, when we live for the moment, we’re still locked in that neverland between past, future, and now. The Irish band is playing another one of their great songs, the melody electrifying your senses. The girl you’re dancing with, smiling, so beautiful and full of life. And the crowd, doing their crowd thing, amplifying every single heartbeat into a powerful thunder. And your mind racing, anticipating the next note from the song, the next swing of the dance. Then making a sharp U-turn, bringing you all the associations form the past. Because you know that song, you’ve heard it before. Your mind has sealed the vibrations of the tunes together with the aroma of another moment in time. Memories are so amazing. Just like in a sci-fi movie on a generous budget, they create countless gateways in time, threading a pattern so delicate yet powerful enough to connect every moment with another one. Life might be short, but it’s long enough for you to weave the most beautiful tapestry with that thread of moments. Weave using as many colors as you can. There’s thousands of distinct variations for the color green. Make sure you’re not using just the plain old green, but your tapestry has every possible shade. Make the moments count so the tapestry turns out not just colorful, but also beautiful. Kids are best at this. Some grow up and become too obsessed with the countdown timer, deciding their tapestry should not be so colorful after all, but it should start following a steady pattern. Others manage to look at the sunlight every day, and see its million colors. Lucky them, they never care too much when the light will cease shining.

It’s the end of the evening. It was a good one, it had what I’d call an open end. It’s almost like you can wake up the next morning and still live the evening. It so much better than having it all laid out, getting the perfect night out – and then it’s over. The lights go to black, the Irish songs fade away. Time to go home. Time to plan for the next day. As good as it might be, a planned evening is just that – a pattern that will inevitably become dull.

Life shouldn’t be just about plans. It shouldn’t be about the end either. It should be an open-ended evening. Charming, full of joy and nice music. Don’t plan it all out, leave some of the mystery behind the curtain. Wake up the next morning still humming an Irish song.