Don’t Run Out The Clock On Life.

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” – Blade Runner

RIPLEY

Why haven’t aliens been here more frequently?  They saw the reviews – one star.

One of the benefits of living in Modern Mayberry is that there are no shortage of places where you can contribute.  After being assistant peewee coach for The Boy’s football (the one men play, not the game for socialist European women) I volunteered to be head coach for Pugsley’s team.  The first season, I was less than spectacular.  And saying I was less than spectacular is being generous.

Let me be clear – when you’re coaching third and fourth graders who can’t even calculate the orbital dynamics of the planet Mercury because they don’t know relativity and keep getting the wrong answer using Newtonian mechanics, it’s the coaching.  The kids are, more or less, equally inept and equally talented.  You put the big kids on the line and the fast kids as backs and receivers and wonder what to do with the small, slow kids.

As a first year coach?  I was like a small, slow kid.  I’m not sure we won a game my first year.  That wasn’t the kids; that season was on me – it was all my fault.  I’ll admit I have faults, and so will The Mrs.   The Mrs. says I have two main faults – that I don’t listen and some other one.

REFS

In Europe they call it 30.48cm ball.

I remember the first game of my second pee-wee football season as clearly as if it were yesterday.  The offense was on the field.  We had just made a first down.  There was a minute and twenty seconds (seventeen metric minutes) left on the clock.  I did the math – thirty seconds a play, four downs . . . and they were out of time outs.

Wait a minute, I thought.  We were up by five points.  If we just ran three plays and didn’t fumble the ball and let them score a touchdown – we would win!

All we had to do was run out the clock.  Our only enemy was time.

I told the quarterback to just kneel down when the center hiked the ball to him.  For a second, he looked confused – we had played the whole game being aggressive on offense, and we’d racked up 28 points.  Then it clicked in his head – he was a really smart 4th grader.  All he had to do was not fumble.

He had figured out what caught me almost by surprise:  we just had to run out the clock.  Spoiler alert:  we won.  Running out the clock in a football game is a valuable strategy.

EX

I was going to tell another football joke, but it had an offensive line.

How does this translate off the field?

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post – I use a planner.  Some of the things that are on my daily to-do list are straightforward.  Plan to take over the world.  Remember to feed the kraken.  But I recently added one:

Are You Running Out The Clock?

You might think that’s a weird thing to think about every day when you go into work, and maybe it is.  In the crazy, deflating and inflating economy of 2020, a job might be something that’s required for survival.  But a job also might be something you’re going through the motions on and running the clock, and your life out every day watching the seconds tick away until 5pm.

Now, don’t get me wrong – if it’s important to get money to live, fulfillment isn’t the goal – feeding the family is first.  In 2020 and 2021 jobs will be hard to find, so if you’re bored but have a family to feed – FEED YOUR FAMILY AND STAY UNTIL 5PM.

JOB

I quit my job at the helium plant – I will NOT be spoken to in that tone of voice.

But what happens when a job or your life becomes another exercise in running out the clock and you don’t have to worry about feeding the family?

That’s not a win.

Humans were made to be the most multi-purpose machine in the history of the planet.  We’re essentially the Swiss Army® animal.  Where other animals inhabit a specific niche or even several niches on the planet, humans alone have consciously gone from the bottom of the sea to the surface of the moon.  We can run, swim, climb, think and even make new elements while we try to figure out how to harness the power of a star.  We can then rip atoms apart just for fun, and watch C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.  And all of this before breakfast.

WILL

You know that in freshman English William at least got a B on the Romeo and Juliet section. 

Then we can write a sonnet, or, as Shakespeare observed in Hamlet:

What a piece of work is a man.  How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty.  In form and moving how express and admirable. In action how like an angel.  In apprehension how like a god!

The beauty of the world.

The paragon of animals.

Humans are amazing.  Shakespeare really got that.  If I live my entire life, I’m not sure I can string together six sentences that are so amazing and so understand just how amazing a creature humans are.

Then Will followed up with this:

And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Four hundred years ago, the Bard was ahead of me.  It’s amazing to be human.  We have great capabilities.  But then?  Hamlet goes and decides he wants to run out the clock.

But we’re not made for running out the clock – that’s why Hamlet is a tragedy.  Hamlet was only thirty years old.  He had grown weary of life, and he didn’t even have the excuse of having met my ex-wife.

We don’t get a deposit back for bringing our bodies back in great condition after we’re done with them.  Let me be clear:  we have a one use rental on these things.  You need to use your body and your life like you stole it.  My left hip hurts at least once a month.  A lot.

SOA

My vacuum has Roomba®-tiod arthritis. 

Good.  I popped it out coaching those peewee football players.  If I get arthritis there?  It’s like a gray hair in my beard – I’ve earned it.  I want the coroner to look at my body at the end and say:  “I’m glad he’s not donating these organs.  He used all of them up.  How do you wear out a bellybutton?  This guy did.”

I’ve seen a “running out the clock” mentality in my own family.  When Pa Wilder started to get older, one thing I noticed is that his life seemed to revolve not around achieving, but around existing.  He walked.  He ate.  He watched TV.  He took his medications.

But he ceased doing anything of meaning.  He ceased fighting.  I’ll admit, people deserve a rest from time to time.  But even in old age, even if disabled, and even if depressed – you can do something.

There is no time in your life where you can’t matter.

Running out the clock isn’t a goal – unless it’s a peewee football game.

How will you make a difference today?

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

32 thoughts on “Don’t Run Out The Clock On Life.”

  1. Dammit, Jonn, you’ve made me look in the mirror. Yet again. Thanks a lot. 🙂

  2. ‘Humans are amazing.”

    Indeed, without peer in nature. We are also the greatest of paradoxes, capable of producing the music of Beethoven, Wagner and Bach and also of killing for fun. Incredible acts of selfless sacrifice and also hurting other for the sake of hurting them. Humans are simultaneously the very best and the very worst nature has to offer.

    1. You know, I really think you would enjoy John C. Wright’s The Golden Age (and the two subsequent books in the Golden Oecumene.) If you can get a free copy without sending a penny Tor Book’s way (ideal: they hate us, life, love, truth, beauty, and world-bending SF) , please drop a donation in the author’s tip jar.

      1. I know your comment wasn’t to me, but I am a huge fan of Mr. Wright, and The Golden Age is one of my favorites of his.

  3. Coincidentally to this post, I have started watching Black Mirror while I use my garage rowing machine. I’ve seen a few scattered episodes in the past but now I’m starting from the beginning. The very first episode they produced which I saw yesterday (Fifteen Million Merits) is specifically on topic of “don’t run out the clock – do something constructive”. This is an excellent introductory episode to the whole Black Mirror anthology series on Netflix.

    And if you only watch two Black Mirror episodes – make the other one Metalhead.

    1. Ricky, I beg leave to differ with you on your choice of “Black Mirror” episodes. If people are only going to watch two, I’d urge them to start with “Nosedive.” And then, cautiously, “The National Anthem.”

  4. What will I do today? I think I’ll go make myself a pocket-calendar for 2020! Then I can plan the rest of the year… as if my plans for the first half of the year turned out as expected. 😉 But, as Eisenhower said “plans are nothing, but planning is everything”. Better late than never.

    Actually, the pocket calendar that I bought in early 2019 included pages through August, 2020, so I’m not actually all that new to the planning process. (The Books-a-Million store that I bought it from has recently closed, along with the cosplay (or LARP?) lingerie shop in the same mall.)

    1. As a great man once said “A plan is just a list of shit that won’t happen.”

  5. This is exactly why I like this blog, it’s inspiring and funny while remaining vividly aware of the major national trauma we are facing.

  6. John – – Another biting chew on the ever digestible human condition.

    Kongratulations Kudos Kid !! ( K.K.K.)

  8. A good friend just retired the other day. I’ve known him since we were teenagers, and I told my wife “He’s not gonna last in retirement.”

    On that very day, he got an offer to do some consulting for an old client. He’s thinking about it.

    1. Sounds like he will. Me? I’m horribly good at not working. Though I seem to have picked up a writing habit.

  10. “Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius. A genius is somebody like Norman Einstein.”
    – Joe Theismann

  11. “My vacuum has Roomba®-tiod arthritis.”

    I just BRUSHED past that pun because it SUCKED…

  12. Your post made me think of someone telling me they were bored. I was infuriated. There is always something to do. Paint the house, pull weeds from a flowerbed, read something, trim your toenails, clear the dust bunnies from under the refrigerator, go for a walk, learn the name of the constellations….anything but wasting your valuable time wondering if something amazing will happen while you wait. The number of seconds we’re allotted is not infinite. Throwing away any is unconscionable.

    1. Right? That is exactly my philosophy. When my kids told me they were bored I always had a list.

      It’s been years since I’ve heard that phrase.

  13. I’m starting a small business providing Firearms Training to State Concealed Carry standards and below. Renewing my lapsed Instuctor Certification. There are numerous new gun owners, demand for training is high, and a service to society as a whole. At the same time, I would never dream of using it as a vehicle to develop a network of like minded individuals that could gather and respond to emergent situations.

    That is what I’m doing to stay active

  14. Amazing, Cannot figure how I ever had time for work. Got a milling machine and learned how to use it, big reloader, started leather work, take care of my autos, fix things as I am not part of the throw away society and play at “Ricks Restorations”. Doing all of the projects I always wanted to do and never had time. Also got my general licence for ham Radio and CERT. Body is creaky and somewhat fat but life is lots of rewarding activities.

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