Time is Honey 🍯

Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe has been the perfect accompaniment to my lunch breaks this week. In fact, this Australian coming-of-ager left me curious to discover the Queenslander’s origin story, which strangely mirrors so many of the book’s underlying characters and setting. 

Much like the writer’s alter-ego protagonist Eli Bell, Dalton’s parents were smack addicts in nineteen-eighties Brisbane. Most peculiar however was the fact that Dalton’s own babysitter was a celebrated con who spent the better part of his adult life behind bars. 

Arthur ‘Slim’ Halliday served over thirty years in the Boggo Road Penitentiary and came to understand the true nature of time. As Dalton makes plain, the career crim survived inside by learning to make time work in his favour. 

‘Do Your Time Before It Does You’ quips Halliday, a piece of wisdom that compelled me to put these words down in a fit of passion.

With the gift of meditation, I’ve come to understand time in a whole new light. In the process it’s helped me to savour fleeting moments I once took for granted. 

When we allow ourselves the capacity to hit pause and reflect on our daily lives we start to see the endless possibilities. We also start to realize how much time is wasted in service to the ego.

We don’t need to worry about whether we’re on par with the Jones’. Nor do we need to devote every last second chasing down that white rabbit.

When we come to view time as honey, not money, we learn to appreciate the delicate beauty of presence.

Xo