I was reminded of that by this tweet by Terry Teachout:
A dying man contemplates his untouched bookshelf: https://t.co/P3mSadnziX pic.twitter.com/YNy2mB7Ssq— Terry Teachout (@terryteachout) November 25, 2017
ADDED: On publishing this post, I saw I'd written "his tweet" for "this tweet" and said out loud: "So many typos, so little editing" and realized that it seems that David Cassidy died without finishing a sentence. The usual pattern is "So much X, so little Y." If, fast approaching death, the man said "So much X," and he'd wanted to go on to say "so little" something, what was the something?
So much wasted time, so little ____________.
So much wasted time, so little well-spent time.
So much wasted time, so little time left.
So much wasted time, so little time now to say what I might have done if I'd known not to waste it.
So much wasted time, so little time now if only to waste.
So much wasted time, so little value placed on time until now....
So much wasted time, so little love.
पोस्ट्स
१०० टिप्पण्या:
Scary, isn't it?
I prefer John Quincy Adam's (alleged) last words: It is the end of earth for me. But I am content.
What's your aphorism? "Doing nothing is a high bar." I've been doing a lot of nothing this weekend, and it's been wonderful. Definitely not wasted time.
I hope mine will be “it is well with my soul”.
If you plan your last words ahead of time, they're not your last words. You wasted you last moment being a phony slave to your old self who didn't have the basis for an end-of-life observation. What a waste!
... accomplished.”
Well that's depressing to be the first thing I read in the morning.
I better get reading.
So much wasted time, so little browsing the internet.
I suspect a lot of Famous Last Words are Ghost-Written.
time left to waste
Can't read everything anyway...
https://what-if.xkcd.com/76/
"So much wasted time, so little browsing the internet."
I could mass produce gravestones with that and make a fortune.
I've got to watch my sugar, I'm kind of running out of time. I said to my niece when she offered some food during a short visit on Thanksgiving Day.
My last words are going to be "Another life's useless energy spent."
I'd go to Wurlitzer for organ failure, myself.
A coworker announced her sudden retirement two months ago. Cancer returned and she wanted to take some time off before it got bad again. She died three weeks later. For the past eight years my wife said she wanted to retire at age 60. We’d run the numbers and always came up with 62 for her and 65 for me. Two years ago she finds a lump in her breast. Fights and beats it. We rerun the numbers. She will retire at 60 and me at 62.
He was reflecting on the Eagles song, Wasted Time. I'm surprised you didn't pickup on that...you're usually quick with the song connection.
Or...
So much wasted time surfing the web.
A life spent mostly killing time while waiting for time to kill me. Yeah, so much wasted time.
"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's living." Augustus McCrae.
Reading "Grant" this morning. His future wife's younger sisters were entranced with Grant. Her father told him that, if he wanted to marry one of the younger sisters, Nellie, he could do so now but not Julia.
They waited three years. A lot of new information to me.
Trying not to waste years,
"so much wasted time, so little love."
Yeah, yeah, it's the only thing that there's just too little of.
"so much wasted time, so little love."
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
If you waste time, time will surely waste you. People who use their time on earth productively rarely die.........Cassidy died a little on the youngish side. He didn't go the full Lear Monty. Had he but lived a little longer he would have come to realize that there was nothing he could do to vindicate or validate his life. Life's a puzzle without a solution, a crostic of nonsense words. It's been cleverly designed to make us think that if we just keep trying and concentrate harder, we will find the solution.......Einstein apparently spent years trying to disprove quantum mechanics. What a waste. He could have spent those years reading Trollope novels or learning shorthand.
I think it's a sentiment of the non-old.
Ann Althouse said...
So much wasted time, so little browsing the internet.
Hahahhhahahhaa!
I read this comment earlier. It is so sad. As I understand things he was estranged from his daughter so his quote probably had a specific meaning rather than a general commentary on his life, but still very sad.
Stop. And look around. Somebody wants to love you. Somebody wants to love you.
He was battling dementia, no?
Rosebud.
"Stop. And look around. Somebody wants to love you. Somebody wants to love you."
Yeah, but sexual harassment...
And there's so much time to make up everywhere you turn
Time we have wasted on the way
So much water moving underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg-Qdrr3XSk
Michael K said...
Her father told him that, if he wanted to marry one of the younger sisters, Nellie, he could do so now but not Julia.
Man, what a soap opera! They could've had their own reality show if they'd had reality back then.
They waited three years.
Sometimes three years can seem like forever...when you're in love.
A lot of new information to me.
Hey, #METOO! You sure can't have too much information about the antics of Nellie and Julia!
Trying not to waste years,
I bet you meant to type something after the comma which was supposed to make that sound all meaningful 'n' shit.
I'm currently killing time while waiting for the Ky/Louisville football game.
maybe it was a positive statement! He was happily reflecting on how much time he enjoyed being wasted! '70s teen idol, c'mon!
Life is fragile transient and mysterious. It is a gift to be treasured every day. We often forget about that and forget to enjoy the small things.
To save space I am shamelessly linking to a post I did 5 years ago about life and timeSand in the Hourglass
I told my husband if IF I go before him, I want THIS SONG played at my funeral and then everyone go have a party.
Not going to waste a lot of thought on my last words. Most of the people whom I have known who died over the last couple decades didn't know exactly when it was going to happen and/or weren't all that lucid at the time. Maybe it happened more in the past when we weren't as effective sedating for pain. Most of those in my parents' generation who died during that time either did so in their sleep, or drugged up on morphine.
That said, a bucket list may be a good idea. Not for reading, but for doing things. For reading, I hate to admit it, but I am now rereading more than reading new. Just put up shelves for my science fiction collection of maybe 2k titles, and keep finding ones that I want to retread, because it was so pleasant last time. My partner has a list of places she wants to go and see, and if it were just me, I think that we might make a lot of them. But she doesn't travel well, so expect that we won't see that many of them. Heck, she begged off at the last minute for our flight Thursday to CO for Thanksgiving, and I went alone (we are seeing her kids and grandkids tonight back in AZ).
It was mostly fun, being betamax3000. Back in the Day. I was pushing my creative boundaries and enjoying the Althouse Experience. Bob Dylan Robot, etc etc. Still happy with some of what I wrote, chagrined by some others of course. I sort of bounced off the walls, really. And the years of Title Case: yeah, maybe I could have done without that. But not wasted time, I believe.
Perhaps the rose-colored glasses of memory, but I believe that it was one of the many Althouse Golden Ages. We are in another one now. Probably what the Table of Contents would call 'The Post-Retirement Years'.
After a while I began to feel like I was willingly putting myself in a box. I then would extricate myself from that box, and wind up in another. It didn't matter much at the time: I was an Escape Artist.
Then the fire went out. I was having what the doctor referred to as suicidal ideation. Things got dark, medicine got weird, and I was starting to come off the rails. I have since made peace with these thoughts, and treat them as the occasional storm that passes through. The occasional tree gets blown over, sometimes. Anyway: Alive and Kicking, as the old Simple Minds song went -- that one with the overly loud drums and overly emotive voice, as was the style of the time.
As for 'james james': when I was a kid, another kid named James moved into the neighborhood. People would distinguish by saying James or James-James, meaning the first one. I was James-James.
That is not a true story, but it will suffice.
betamax3000 was here.
james james is here.
-jj
My wife developed ovarian cancer 13 years ago. It was determined to be stage 2c, surgery and chemo put it into remission and her doctor said the odds were good (about 70-80%) that it would never come back. It did come back, stage 4 this time. Chemo put it into remission again and she retired with 30 years and a pension. I always figured I'd work until 70 or so, but I retired on my 62nd birthday. We've been through the cancer/remission cycle again since then. Early retirement was the best decision we ever made. We know this doesn't go on forever, but we're happy as can be and we're having tons of fun. Life is the best it's ever been.
What is this, the deathbed confession of a showbiz workaholic?
This is why I've always thought the "dying declarations" the most questionable exception to the hearsay rule.
Larry, Thank you and God Bless to you and all you love.
David Cassidy's Dad, Jack Cassidy, came to a sad ending as well. He was unable to utter any Dying Words.
I've already chosen my epitaph: "I knew this would happen."
I think "So much wasted time" was the complete thought--regret at how much time he, and all of us, waste on trivial pursuits. As to what we'd substitute for the mindless entertainment and games, the worry over things that never happened, the petty arguments, well, that's going to be different for each of us, and a question that's a lot harder to answer than what we regret. But ultimately, both the subject of regrets and what we would have done differently are themselves a waste of time, because there's nothing one can do about them at the end of our days.
A dying man contemplates his unspent retirement funds. He thinks about the plane tickets he didn’t buy. That’s not me. At my age it’s all about the timing.
I think he said this because of his addictions and wonder why no one else sees it that way.So many hours spent stoned..
A friend sometimes tries this trick w/ people she knows who're depressed (doesn't work on sick or infirm).
Sit back. close your eyes. Imagine you are 85 years old, confined to a wheelchair and bed. You try listening to books but mostly you watch TV and sleep. Your mind is still sharp, but you're the prisoner of your body and it will not get better; you are physically declining and soon it will drag your brain down as well and you will die. This is what it is like, day after day after day, etc. etc.
Then one day, an alien presence appears and offers to send you back in time 30 years (or 40 or 50 years depending on the depressed person's age) and let you relive those last decades over. You assume you are dreaming, that its a trick. This is beyond all possible hope. But it is not. And the alien sends you back and here you are.
I'll be happy if my last words aren't "I think I just shit the bed."
-jj
Ebooks are better. You wont seem them
Re the great books - the greatest loss is to those (fairly few) kids who should be reading them, or be encouraged to read them.
It would be an acceptable loss if they were doing something better, but they aren't. They aren't studying anything better, at best they are surviving the barrage of absurd pap their teachers are feeding them. They aren't even chasing girls (or boys, if girl), learning to dance, playing baseball, earning money, inventing something. No. They are sitting stunned before video games.
Their time is precious, ours (we retired/close to) isn't. We are done, had and raised the kids, stored up our wealth for our posterity. They have an awful lot on their plates, I am quite done with the feast.
Dust Bunny Queen: I hope it's not necessary for decades yet but I too think about what music I would want at my funeral/memorial service. Along the lines of your Traveling Wilburys "The End of the Line," this song by The Band is a strong contender: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLGIjEia45s&list=FLPhbXsAtivv4VFCJDWO45Mw&index=16
Oh my god.
A whole generation is just dying away.
I suppose that's to be expected. What's not is how ordinary a generation we're getting to replace it.
The stars back then had to actually act out scripts when they went to tv shows.
These degenerates make a reality tv show out of their own completely ordinary lives.
We're done for.
Did you have to link to FOX "News"?
So nasty. And to think... you expect me to use the Amazon portal!
Tainted, tainted, tainted. Now I have to go take a shower. Just the performance of their clunky, junky, tabloid website alone is enough to have to rinse my eyeballs out. The Oxy-Contin operation out back in the woods is more high-tech than FOX's made-by-monkeys website.
David Cassidy was a huge phenom for 1 or 2 years in the early 70s. Not quite like Elvis, but close. He probably got laid a heluva lot.
But the problem is that fame and thrills are fleeting. He basically flamed out by 1974. I have no idea if he did anything the past 43 years, so, Yes, he prolly had a lotta wasted time.
It's best to recognize the abyss of wasted time, before your death bed.
"Larry, Thank you and God Bless to you and all you love."
Ditto that.
He looked like an even younger version of Randy Rhoads. Ten years before Randy Rhoads.
For Darrell who specifically referred to the introduction in the first link, and other songs relate to the the theme of lost time. I was really floored by the last one the first time I heard it a couple of months ago on Twin Peaks- The Return.
Nights in White Satin
Time
Out of Sand
So much wasted time.
I cudda been a contender. --Rocky
We've all used the expression "Famous last words." Here's a web page that looks at the origin of the expression as currently used:
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/famous-last-words.html
@Virgil Hilts, what a great idea, thanks! I’m doing that trick right now — I have a 92 year old aunt who is in the predicament you describe, so I have no trouble imagining what it’s like to be trapped in a failing body with a mind that is still very sharp. I retired with a sense of real accomplishment from my career designing secure, highly available computer systems. However that doesn’t mean I have to veg and spend my time reading Althouse posts and making fun of Toothless and Chuck.
His daughter is a goddamn bombshell.
Hey, #METOO! You sure can't have too much information about the antics of Nellie and Julia!
Too much time with absolute assholes like Ritmo II
"David Cassidy was a huge phenom for 1 or 2 years" If this hasn't been studied, it should be: comparing people whose identity is tied up with one great thing they did, fairly early, and people whose identity unfolds gradually, through everyday accomplishments.
Hypothesis: people in category one will feel more of their time has been wasted.
Einstein after 1905 (several great things, but still), Cassidy after 1974, Hofstadter after 1979. Further research and finer distinctions are needed.
If you created a family that perfect-looking, the human race wouldn't even have to evolve any further - aesthetically speaking. Just freeze it cryogenically or grant it immortality at that point.
It just goes to show what my wife always says: Looks aren't Everything.
Too much time with absolute assholes like Ritmo II
So Mikey, how fragile an ego do you have to have to be that easily distracted by me, or any commenter for that matter? It's like you've only uploaded two comments, and one is basically devoted to me. I think if I didn't exist you'd have to invent me in order to have someone to be distracted by. Wouldn't it be nice if your life wasn't so empty as to be that easily led astray from it by just another pseudonymous commenter on the webz that you happen to hate?
Good to know your ego is not strong enough to handle my mere cyber-presence. The likelihood that you'll someday be able to get over yourself appears near nil.
Toothless' harsh remarks about Fox News website have resulted in the link being denied. He doesn't speak for us, Mr. Murdoch!
Two classics from William Claude Fields:
"As my dear old grandfather Litvak said, just before they sprung the trap, he said 'You can't cheat an honest man, never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump'".
The hangman of a vigilante mob: "Any last request?"
"Yes. I'd like to see Paris before I die. Philadelphia will do".
Ritmo:?Did you have to link to FOX "News"?
So nasty. And to think... you expect me to use the Amazon portal!
Oh Get over yourself.
Althouse also links to the WAPO and NYT and other liberal sinkholes. WE all need to take a shower. Perhaps separately, though ;-P Otherwise we all might caught up in the #METOO shit storm.
Famous (almost and maybe) Last words:
Voltaire, when on his deathbed was asked by the Priest to repent and repudiate and renounce Satan.
His response "“This is no time,” he said, “to be making new enemies”.
Althouse also links to the WAPO and NYT and other liberal sinkholes.
Which unlike FOX are not tabloids. And at least one of them often has some kick-ass multimedia content.
FOX's multimedia is about as sophisticated as an EDM concert run by color-blind methamphetamine addicts.
Why am I responding to you anyway? Or you to me? Just Thursday you were thanking the lords of thanksgiving for never running into me and not being related to you.
""So much wasted time.""
Gee, this strikes me as pretty much perfect - economically speaking volumes as it is. Does everything really need a "saves nine" or 'three bags full' add on?
I will be happy enough if my last words aren't "Oh Fuck!"
Or, at least not "Here, hold my beer."
Why am I responding to you anyway? Or you to me? Just Thursday you were thanking the lords of thanksgiving for never running into me and not being related to you.
True.
Doesn't mean that I can't screw with your online persona.
Just don't come to dinner m'kay?
Just don't come to dinner m'kay?
Why not? I imagine it would have all the warmth of a prison meal service and all subtle notes and flavors of a 1980s tv dinner.
They made a movie all about famous last wordsCharlie Victor Romeo
So much wasted time
Oh for a bit more to waste
My thought was "so much wasted time, so little to show." Why "show"? I don't know. Great friendships and true love don't necessarily "show"--they're not necessarily visible to others. I guess I think there's something to the question: what have you accomplished? Having great kids is an accomplishment, or something in your career. One old thought is: how many come to your funeral, and in what frame of mind?
An old joke about someone dying either with no regrets or no feeling of something left undone. Asked if he has any last words, the condemned man, with officials gathered with him on the scaffold, says, "No, I've got nothing to say." When a striving politician, who is impressed by the size of the crowd, asks if he can offer a few words, the condemned man is asked if this is OK with him. "Sure, let him talk; but hang me first."
The full phrase that he intended to say was "So much wasted time, dude."
So it kinda works better that he didn't get all of it out.
-jj
The Toothless State-fellator's last words: "O to have more time to lobby for new taxes and new regulations! Those peasants I'm leaving behind just aren't taxed enough and have too damn much freedom!"
Wasted time? Yeah...RITMO, TRUMPIT TTR et al.
Wasted Time!
Oh I know. That's really all I think about, William. Especially with all those big words and abstruse political/legal abstractions. Big words! Scary!
Have you ever thought that you might need to go one size higher on your tinfoil hat?
These aphorisms lack the poignancy of Cassidy’s comment, which is related grammatically to Eliot Ness’ summing up in Brian De Palma and David Mamet’s The Untouchables: “So much violence . . . “
I like to think that "I regret that I did not drink more Champagne" were close to the last words of John Maynard Keynes, because it fits my narrative. I suppose James James would shorten it to "I regret that I did not drink more."
Tongue twister: Terry Teachout tweets twaddle.
Wouldn't it be nice if your life wasn't so empty as to be that easily led astray from it by just another pseudonymous commenter on the webz that you happen to hate?
The fact that my life is not empty like yours is why there are only two comments. And the hater who seems to be triggered by any comment of mine, like you are, has the problem.
I have better things to do, especially when the other comments are from creeps like you and the other one.
“Just don't come to dinner m'kay?”
“Why not? I imagine it would have all the warmth of a prison meal service and all subtle notes and flavors of a 1980s TV dinner.”
Or she’ll bore you to death with a extremely detailed step by minute step on how she thawed, seasoned, massaged the turkey before baking it.
At 77, I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as ‘wasted time’.
I certainly don't know what my last words (if any) will be. But I did ask my wife what to put on my foot stone "As Bob always said "There will always be a nag and no good deed goes unpunished".
My mother's frantic last words in the ER (surprised by my sudden arrival at her bedside), if I could have made them out (unbeknownst to me, she was laboring under the influence of the tranquilizer, Ativan): I'm not dying, son, the doctors are killing me. Get a new doctor to help me, and call the police.
She died from an intentional morphine overdose approximately 6 hours later.
The fact that my life is not empty like yours is why there are only two comments.
Oh yeah. Two comments... ever - you accomplished half-truth teller. I guess we're all now supposed to forget the hundreds of threads littered with dozens of your (well-linked) comments.
And the hater who seems to be triggered by any comment of mine, like you are, has the problem.
Who referred to whom first, dildo? It wasn't me, referring to you.
I have better things to do...
Yeah, yeah, yeah... We hear it all the time. Blah blah blah. I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, go preen and fawn over the fact that there's a book you'd like to read. How impressive!
I figure at the moment of death the key to all mythologies will present itself and my final words will be "I've got it!"
If not I'll go with Aquinas's "It's all shit!" Which has been my opinion for quite a while. Oh, and I mean that in the good sense.
Somerset Maugham said that wasting time is the greatest luxury in the world because you are wasting what is priceless.
Speed reading is a skill I would like to learn to solve the challenge of not enough time...
Until then, go preen and fawn over the fact that there's a book you'd like to read. How impressive!
Literacy classes are available.
Try one,.
DBQ - good song.
I'm going to attempt to say, "Well, here I go again."
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