each moment slipping away...

"There's talk of me being a drug addict or an alcoholic or serious miscreant of some sort," I said to Andy.

"It's not true you know. None of it is true."

"I'm not interested in that. But your writing," he said, "Is there a serious point to make in any or all of it?" 

"Of course there's a serious point to make," I smiled. "My whole life I never knew..."

What do you do when you find out your wife doesn't have cancer?
That's what happened to me today.

Celebrate? But celebrate by doing what?

More to the point, what do you do when you find out that your wife does have cancer?

Celebrate, surely? Celebrate life. Celebrate every minute you have left together.

But then think, why do we distract ourselves so?

Why do we fill our lives with distractions from the most intense and all-consuming truth that we exist for but a moment in time - fast-burning candles, bubbles forming and popping in the stream, fireworks, come and gone in a nano-second.

"Today, I was distracted, by the kitchen," I said to Andy.

"But tonight, I shall tolerate no distractions. 

"My whole life I never knew. But tonight I shall know everything. How distracted I have been, how apathetic, ungrateful and uninsightful.

"Then I shall dwell no longer on my failings, but on my loved ones."

But my whole life, I shall know tonight, not least by a reasonable concept of time and mortality. Not least by the pursuit of happiness but by the consideration of my those closest and most loved by me.

...each moment slipping away, and not a rulebook or a deity to tell us what to do with it... 

...each moment to enjoy, slipping away, best enjoy each while we can...