Blog 3545 – 07.19.2025

In the Blink of an Eye, Time Flies By

In 1975 I turned twenty-five. Sometimes that seems like eons ago, but most of the time it feels like only yesterday. A friend posted the above picture on Facebook today with the line, “In the blink of an eye.” The longer we are here on this particular adventure in time and space the faster time seems to slip by and the smaller space seems to become.

As for the opening line on the picture “I was just minding my own business” that can itself be a contributing factor in the how fast time seems to pass. I am reminded of a couple of lines in the story of Ebenezer Scrooge’s Christmas Eve adventure. There were four ghosts who haunted him that night. The first was his deceased business partner Jacob Marley who bemoaned his misspent life with all its missed opportunities and missteps. An eternity of regrets yawned before him and he hope to warn his friend not to continue down that same path. Ebenezer trying to console the spirit of his departed friend said to Marley, “But you were such a good businessman.” Jacob loudly protested, “But mankind was my business.”

In one of my favorite books and movies, Cider House Rules, the apple picker crew boss seeing one of the crewmen throw a cigarette in the cider manufacturing vat tells him, “You are going to have to go for a swim in the vat and fish out that cigarette or it will ruin that whole batch of cider.” The crew man pulls out a knife and the crew boss responds with a question, “Do you know what business you are in?” The rest of the crew members warn the young man holding the knife to tell the boss that he is in the apple picking business. The crew boss then tells the young man, “You don’t want to be in the knife fighting business with me.” And in the blink of an eye he whips out his knife and cut through the rain slicker that the young man is wearing without drawing any blood but a little of his own as he flicked his knife open so fast that he sliced his own hand. Seeing his life flash before him in the blink of an eye the young man wisely puts his knife away and decides to go for a little dip.

Loving is the family business. Whatever time we have, short or long, slow or fast, it is best spent investing in the lives of others. Jacob Marley had that right and thanks to the fateful Christmas Eve visit he made to an old friend along with the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future they woke ole Scrooge up to his true business. It was said of Ebenezer thereafter that the once miserly and quite miserable businessman had learned that mankind was his business and that he really knew how to keep the spirit of Christmas throughout the whole year.

May we all live long and prosper, carrying on the family business for these lives will all be over in the blink of an eye.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IIva_eqTiRZ60ClAAmDD8jT26cXU8f1u/view?usp=drivesdk

Time In A Bottle