Five Minutes – Octember 5, 2022

Black Magic: the early years
graphix: spwilcen

Prologue

Having practiced Life in Five-minute Segments¹ for an immodest number of years, I’ve become quite adept at capitalizing on those miniscule opportunities.  Especially when infrequent, I selfishly use them to do things I want to do.  Shaving, tying my bootlaces, checking the oil level on Black Magic, those kinds of things. Shame on me.  In my defense, experiencing a stampede of the little doobers, half a dozen or so in a single day, I do dedicate a few to working for the greater good of all.

Laboring under this constraint² requires razor focus and willingness to accept disappointment.  Focus, for example, that on the cusp of a FMS^2.5 and unfortuitously feeling the need to pee, sacrifices are made. Disappointment for example, when just before the final brushstroke of polyurethane or the full cognizance of a Eureka moment, with the timer reading “4:27,” I discover this was one of those only almost five-minute segments.

It is what it is.  We press on.

Recently, in a fully five-minute episode, I attacked one of the oldest and direst questions known to our species:³ what is the root cause of the world’s ills?

It was a good episode.  It ran the timer to 5:05.

I report conclusive results

Women are crazy. Men are stupid.

There need be a follow-on

Do not rush to get my name before the Nobel Committee.  I’ve only identified the world’s overriding difficulty.  The cure is another matter.  I do not expect a Nobel award for just half the work.

Something, actually, short of half the work. The solution, I recognize⁴, will require at least seven minutes. Five-minute segments are rare.  Anything longer is frankly, cosmic.  It might be that others have preceded me in discovery but never enjoyed sufficient time to “bring it home” as it were.

With what time I’ve left, I’ll be looking to complete the job.  Despairing a seven-minute segment, it’s improbable that I can cobble together two five-minute segments to discover the cure, but until I try, the world suffers.  I can forgo shaving perhaps or stop wasting my time trying to sleep.

Hang tough.

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¹ “Life in Five-minute Segments” – We’ve explored this a number of times when spwilcenwrites was whoring creative works, fictional and anecdotal. If you were a casual visitor and missed the show, too bad. If you are new here, well, that’s too bad too.

² [My] Life in five-minute segments.  Are you not paying attention?

^2.5 FMS – Five-minute Segment. You really aren’t paying attention, are you?

³ See how cleverly I got around gender-specificity there?  Damn, but I have my moments! 

⁴ Previous timer reading 4:58 to 5:10.