Very mild Fight Club spoiler follows.In April, I took Bill Bryson's A Short History Of Nearly Everything on holiday with me. Big hardback edition. Halfway through the trip, I leant back in a nice hotel chair, opened it up and started reading the Introduction. Page One.
Before reaching the end of Page One, I slammed the book shut. My blood had run cold. And I read no more. Still haven't. In fact, I was so traumatised that it's taken me eight months to write about it here.
Here's why: Bill casually points out that "even a long human life amounts to little more than 650,000 hours."
650,000 hours? Christ. Thanks, Bill. That really doesn't sound like a lot, if you ask me. Especially when you deduct the number of hours you've already had.
Now, gentle reader, I'm not trying to depress you as the weekend kicks in. No, quite the opposite. As much as drifting along, thinking life's going to stretch on forever, is a beautiful and indeed essential kind of complacency, sometimes it's good to remember that Fight Club quote: "This is your life... and it's ending one minute at a time."
That whole ethos is one of the reasons why Fight Club's one of my favourite films/books. Who can forget Raymond K Hessel, the petrol station worker who gets dragged out back and held at gunpoint, then walks away with a new appreciation for life? Tomorrow's breakfast will be the greatest breakfast he ever had. Sometimes I think most of us could do with being held at gunpoint by Tyler Durden, to drum some self-awareness into us.
So this weekend, why not do something you've never done before, or had been putting off? Unless it's murder, or setting fire to my flat, seize the moment. Where, in a very real sense, is the harm?
