Oh Well

A friend of mind posted on his blog saying that he was just starting to embark on the study of philosophy. He is also a budding musician and I've spent many hours playing and talking to him.

I commented on his post: "Life is perplexing. Yesterday I spent 5 hours practicing piano and I was proud of myself, but then I realized I had 3 books of the Odyssey to read. If only there were more hours in the day so I could read Homer, Aristotle, Kierkegaard and all those other guys as well as teach myself Calculus, and learn the piano and the saxophone. And I'd have time to give the flute and guitar their due diligence. At the end of every day I remind myself that there must be a reason that God only gave man 24 hours in a day and made us to need sleep."


Why aren't there enough hours in one day to do everything you want to do? It's 10:35 right now and I wish I could nail the changes on "Confirmation" a bit better, but the house is asleep and I should be too. And tomorrow morning I will wake up and play 30 minutes of Hanon, go off to school, do homework and eat, practice for 3 hours, finish my homework and go to bed. I've never wanted to be the musician who only knows about music, so don't get me wrong, I love school. And I appreciate homework. And I need to eat. But why aren't there enough hours in the day to do everything? When I go to bed at night I'll know I need to go to bed if I have any hope of being awake the next day, but I'll want to read another chapter, or transcribe another 15 seconds or whatever. The pursuit of knowledge is always hampered by time.

I've figured out a lot of things about God, or more appropriately he has allowed me to understand things about him, but I've yet to understand why he only gives us 16 hours in a day to do something useful. Think of how much more you could do if you had 4 more hours at your disposal. Think of how much a little child could learn if he had 40 hours to learn in a day. At 20 he would know as much as most scholars know at 40.

Or would he? Maybe humans aren't meant to know everything, even if it is worth while. Maybe they aren't meant to do everything even if it is worth while. And of course how many people complain that they don't have enough time to pray or go to church in the day. Possibly, man only needs 24 hours to accomplish everything God needs him to accomplish, and learning even the most worth while of subjects is frivolous in the mind of God? But then you have to wonder how God could possibly have such a seemingly low view of the products of man's rational abilities.

I've always hated blog entries that ask questions without telling you anything. At least the type of questions that are either easily answerable or to obscure to answer, such that you get nothing out of the entry. Pardon me if I fell victim to my own pet peeve.