Can you believe it? This poem was actually published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1949, under the title, “Time of the Mad Atom.” See if it sounds familiar.
This is the age
Of the half-read page.
And the quick hash
And the mad dash.
The bright night
With the nerves tight.
The plane hop
With the brief stop.
The lamp tan
In a short span.
The Big Shot
In a good spot.
And the brain strain
The heart pain.
And the cat naps
Till the spring snaps −
And the fun’s done!
It seems that people were as frantic then as they are now.
Many years ago James Lachard (pen name for John James Brown) wrote a piece called “An Interview with God.” In it, the narrator asks God, “What surprises you most about mankind?”
God’s answer is telling: “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
Are we so driven to make a living that we can’t make a life? Are we so anxious about what might happen tomorrow that we miss what is happening today? What if we decided that today is too important not to cherish?
I don’t want to get addicted to being busy. And I don’t want to die before I’ve ever really lived. To paraphrase Art Buchwald, whether these are the worst of times or the best of times, I know these are the only times I’ve got, and I want to live them with intention.
I think I can start that today.
-- Steve Goodier
Image: flickr.com/ukg.photographerflickr.com/ukg.photographer
