All The Time They'll Get There Anyway, You See

What would it mean not to hurry?

Since 2011 I have kept a little quote book where I write down lines or passages from the books I’m reading that strike me as especially poignant.

It’s considered sort of gauche and problematic now so I’m glad I read On the Road when I was younger and could approach it without it being tainted by any prefigured conclusions. There were a few snippets in there that struck me hard enough to make it into my quote book, and I’ve been reflecting on one in particular this week, as is perhaps fitting giving my own current mad dash back and forth across the country in my car.

They have worries, they're counting the miles, they're thinking about where to sleep tonight, how much money for gas, the weather, how they’ll get there — and all the time they’ll get there anyway, you see. But they need to worry and betray time with urgencies false and otherwise, purely anxious and whiny, their souls really won't be at peace until they can latch on to an established and proven worry and having once found it they assume facial expressions to fit and go with it, which is, you see, unhappiness, and all the time it all flits by them and they know it and that too worries them no end.

In the novel Dean Moriarty says this to mark his distaste for the priorities of a couple who have let Sal and him hitch a ride. And I think it’s a worthwhile, if perhaps overly cynical, observation. It certainly has applied to my own life at times. Before I left to hike the PCT I made sure to take a picture of this particular quote so that I could refer back to it as often as necessary. I didn’t know much about thru-hiking, but I did know that I have always had a bad habit of wanting things to be over with, wanting to just get where I was supposed to be going, always undervaluing the process of getting there—which is where most of the good stuff happens.

Applied to its logical extreme this is an awfully easy way to waste an entire life. What is a life, but two firm endpoints and all the stuff in the middle? We all have the same place to get to, and what a pointless and profligate thing it is to hope for an instant of it to rush past. Racing to a red light, is what it is. (And wow have I seen a lot of that since getting on the road, too. New York City drivers deservedly get a bad rap but Indiana drivers could really give them a run for their money.)

Of course we all do this anyway, as it would be impossible to not do it sometimes. It’s hard to give full attention to the preciousness of each passing second when that second is one spent stuck in traffic, or in a meeting that could have been an email, or answering an email that really needs a meeting. But I think it’s worth remembering, when you can, that all those seconds count—and maybe they’re the only thing that does, in the end.

That said, the finitude of all those seconds is also a very good argument for ending or upending the systems and structures that govern our lives so that we might have the real freedom to spend those seconds how we choose. But until we get to that point, well—may as well make the most of it when you can.

So my mission for this return journey as I drive across the country is to try not to discount or resent any of my precious seconds, even when I’m spending them staring at cornfields or billboards about how I’m going to Hell, even when I’m crushingly lonely. During a tough stretch in 2020 I wrote that I was sure loneliness had nothing left to teach me. I had previously espoused the virtues of loneliness and the active choice of seeking time away from others to find out more truly who you were, but a long and lonesome series of months where my wife and I were stuck a few thousand miles apart pretty much put paid to my interest in being alone.

I’ve mostly recovered from that position, I think. On my first solo leg of the return trip across the country, I went from New York City to western Pennsylvania, where I made camp at a KOA. As the long late summer light began to lower over the trees I felt a familiar tightening in my throat. While I’m not truly alone—our dog, Orla, is my copilot for this half of the trip—it did make me realize that for the first time in months, I was spending a night away from every single person I loved. Just me, responsible for my own happiness and my dog’s. No cavalry.

I would rather not just endure things. When I can, it’s nice to take my own advice and try to lean into it. When I woke up in the tent the next morning—okay, when Orla woke me up in the tent the next morning, an hour before my alarm—I was glad that I had done all this, weird and tiring as it all has gotten at times.

The experience has also reminded me that there is always the choice to be kind. So many moments in each day present anew the opportunity to do so. I always have the choice to be kind to my dog, even when she’s being exasperatingly difficult. I always have the choice to be kind to myself, even if I’ve just finished failing at being kind to my dog. I’m grateful for that knowledge; there are precious few things in life we get so many chances at.

If you’re willing I’d love to hear from you about all this. What you do to make your seconds count, how you remember to embrace them. How you’ve purposefully chosen to be kind to someone else lately (human or otherwise), how you’ve made sure to be kind to yourself. And if you don’t have answers for any of those hopefully there will be some comments for you to read and steal some ideas from.

Thanks, as always, for reading. I’ll talk to you next week.

-Chuck

PS - If you liked what you read here, why not subscribe and get this newsletter delivered to your inbox each week? It’s free and always will be.