Things That Do and Those That Don’t — And One That Changed Everything
PREFACE
Change—change is the inevitable constant, a force of nature driven, measured, and observed by the laws of entropy on one hand and the magical forces of science, creativity, innovation, invention, and engineering on the other. Time moves on, second by second, hour by hour, year by year, forcing change upon us no matter how we try to slow it or hold it back. Time is like the air we breathe and the rotation of the planet beneath our feet. Time moves on, and as it is truly said: “time and tide wait for no man.”
This book is also about time—my times and, of course, yours. I decided to write it a few months before my upcoming birthday—one of the ways we count our years. As I sit in my office today, my cat is snoozing on the desk and the dog lies beside my gun cabinet. A quiet classical music channel plays on the TV, and today is Sunday.
It seems that Sundays come faster and faster. Like grains of sand in an hourglass, they appear to fall more quickly as the remaining grains become fewer. I have heard this same observation from many older people, though seldom from the young. I distinctly remember how agonizingly slow time seemed during my teen and university years. I would sit in classrooms watching the clock above the door tick its way toward 3 p.m., when the bell would ring and we were free—at least until the next day. Time back then seemed to drag, each minute slower than the last. April to June felt like an eternity. Anticipation—or perhaps fear of the future—seemed to put the brakes on time.
As I have aged, my appreciation for the status quo (the wonderful present) has sharpened. I no longer look forward eagerly to changing seasons, summer, weekends, holidays, or—especially—birthdays. I enjoy the present moment more than ever and do what I can to prolong pleasant interludes. Yet change forces itself upon my awareness. Winter turns to spring no matter what, and I am forced to concede my minutes, recognizing that the hours and years remaining diminish inexorably until the last grain falls—like an aged Eskimo cast adrift on a melting slab of ice, watching his shrinking platform until he finally slips into the frigid sea and disappears forever.
And so I will set about building the chapters of this book, sharing my thoughts—and asking you to share yours. You, my readers, face the same fate; your time is running out too, whether you are ahead of me or behind me on this moving sidewalk of life.
Robert J. Firth
Boca Raton, Florida
2012
