Slaves of time?

"Be Drunk"   

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.

by Charles Baudelaire 
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Does our work makes us slaves of time?  Many people can't wait for retirement, for freedom to spend their time as they like.  Our time is not our own at our workplace, and for some, that which should be personal time after a full day is also at the mercy of our careers.

 Baudelaire came into an inheritance, so he never wanted for money.  I wonder how many people still get that sort of money.  How many of us can or will claim an inheritance that will guarantee financial freedom?  And what about those who know they will inherit a tidy sum, so that they have more personal freedom to do as they please in the present.  Do they do as they please then?

If only work could be so truly a part of our existence that we could feel completely fulfilled by it.  In education, so much time has become focused on paperwork that the time in the classroom represents only a fraction of our time. And no one seems to count the psychic energy we as teachers expend as part of our working time.  Teaching is a very complex profession, which demands much of us.


Value your time.  I think spring always lets us be a little more drunk with life, which is why we wait for it, some of us more impatiently than others.