Ruminations on a moment in time

Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies

This week something completely different and sentimental. In general, I am not one for spending too much time thinking about the past and having regrets about what I could have done, or I should have done. Of course, examining the past so that you don’t repeat the same mistakes over and over again is always a worthy exercise but wallowing in self-pity and regret about the past is a different matter. I often use the expression, coulda,woulda, shoulda when people start talking about what should have been or could have been. Despite being dismissive about having regrets about the past I am going to do exactly that today.

The featured photograph was taken by me on the 7^th of November 2010 at 5:16 PM at the Vaal dam and features my two sons Oliver and Connor who were then ten and seven. The exposure time was 1/640 of a second. A split second frozen in time. That instant is gone forever and the fact that I can never return to that moment causes me a great deal of sadness and regret. As you get older and the inevitable end of your life becomes more real you increasingly realise that time is, by far, the most valuable thing you have.

In the foreground Oliver is bowling an off spinner and, in the background, Connor is speeding down the road on his bike. This is the same road where Connor first took the training wheels off his bike, and he was super proud of that. There is a highveld storm brewing on the horizon with thunder and lightning. The sun is shining through the clouds. Later that evening there would be a braai and beers with family and friends. Everything is exactly as it should be. The moment could not be more perfect. But it is gone forever.

Oliver loved to play cricket. I lost count of how many times he asked me, “Dad will you play cricket with me?” Many times I did but sometimes I was also my irritable self and was too busy or too self-absorbed to agree. He would leave me for a while and then ask again.

Looking at that perfect photograph brings home the reality that time is fleeting and marches on relentlessly and there is no going back. My boys will never be seven and ten again.

If I were to engage in a wistful thought experiment of now being magically transported back to that moment, what would I do differently? If you know of  a magic lamp out there with a genie please let me know because I would jump at the opportunity. I might even pay you generously for the lamp. If I were transported back to 2010 I would like to think that I would play more cricket with Oliver and read more Just So stories to Connor. Connor loved Rudyard Kipling’s Just So stories and to this day we still both quote liberally from those wonderful stories. Every time we cross the Limpopo River, we remember that the Kolokolo bird said to the elephant, with a mournful cry, “Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees”. We look for the fever trees but we don’t see them. We also read the many wonderful Roald Dahl stories. The publisher of these stories, Penguin Random House, recently announced it would be republishing airbrushed and sanitised versions of these stories so that they are more politically correct. But I digress sanitising literature is a topic for another day and another blog. Connor is now too old, too big and way too independent to ever sit on my knee again while I read him a story.

On 8 November 2010 the Apple share price was $9.68 and it would be hard for me to resist buying those shares knowing that within 10 years the share price would reach $170. I would also be an early investor in Bitcoin.  Perhaps making money from my time travel might seem crass but it would also perhaps have freed me from life as a corporate drone earlier. Life is certainly easier with more money but is it better?

Would I have been a better father and husband? I would like to think so, but perhaps new and different problems would have arisen. I would make new and perhaps bigger mistakes and when I got to 2023 again, I would need to repeat the cycle to correct those mistakes in a version of Groundhog Day. Each time I would get wealthier and wealthier and become a billionaire and make the cover of Fortune magazine as an investing savant. And since power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely a downward spiral would ensue where Oliver and Connor become billionaire spoilt brats and every 2023 my regrets would multiply. Would I ever see the errors of my ways and curb my narcissism for the greater good? I don’t know. I could always fix it next time.

Is there anything I can learn from this? What can I do better with my remaining time? Am I once again spending too much time working and not spending enough time with my family? Am I doomed to repeat the same mistakes. If I didn’t work, which is a choice I now have, would it make it better? If I were to devote all my remaining time to being with my family, would they not soon grow very tired of that? Dear readers I do not know the answer to these questions but perhaps you do, and you can tell me.

Thank you for all the ideas and comments. I really appreciate them and please keep them coming.

Regards

Bruce