On the Tyranny of Time

A powerful line by Miles Davis and a flood of thoughts

“The Palm of Miles Davis” by Irving Penn (1986)

So much happened in Miles Davis’ last years. He had gotten his life back after a period of six years of voluntary isolation, music abandonment, no sense of direction, drug and alcohol abuse. He got into the studio and started playing again, creating some of the most beautiful and interesting music of his career, and touring and making himself available for interviews and collaborations. He started sketching and painting, embracing the visual arts. And he fell in love. 

Jo Gelbard, an artist who lived in Miles’ same building in New York City and had met him a few years earlier, at a low point in his life, was by his side for this whole period of resurrection. She became his art teacher and, eventually, his companion. I’ve met a woman whom I really feel comfortable with, [...] who loves me for myself, said Miles. Although he was married three times and got himself in many relationships, Miles fell in love very late in life. He fell in love and wanted to reinvent himself, and in part that’s what happened. But time was running out. He felt that time was running out.

“There was no question that in the last year of his life, he was dying -- he knew it and I knew it. His choice in the last year of his life was to almost accelerate the process, because he worked tremendously. He was painting a lot, he did this whole tour, he was recording, so he made almost a conscious choice to live his life full pressure until it was no longer possible”, said Gelbard in an interview.

And then she said something that Miles told her right before passing. Something crude yet sharp like a sword, disarming and hard to swallow, but awfully human. “When God punishes you, it’s not that you don’t get what you want. You get everything that you want and there’s no time left.”

Every time I hear this, I get emotional. Instinctively, I think that Miles Davis would have given so much more to humanity, if only he’d had more time. But then I think that he did give us a lot, and that it’s hard to accept any regrets from someone who lived it all, at maximum speed. Someone who was blessed with the gift of genius and touched and changed so many lives. Someone whose art is immortal, who was capable of creating something that defeated time. 

Thinking about time is a dreadful exercise. It’s painful and terrifying. It evokes impotence, smallness, insignificance, futility. The idea that, without time, relationships and thoughts and projects and desires instantly lose their meaning feels maddening and humbling. As profound as ruminations on time slipping through our fingers may be, they don’t create more of it. And make things worse.

I’m actually okay with reviewing life on our deathbed and realizing we could use more time and reflecting on its incommensurable value. Right there, it makes sense (if we can pull it off). But why do we go through our already complicated existences continuously thinking about the finiteness of time and, in so doing, inflict so much pain on ourselves? Granted, it’s hard to ignore the issue when we’re bombarded with messages like live each day as if it were your last and surrounded by time management gurus and living in a world where productivity is a valuable obsession. 

But I think we owe it to our mental and spiritual sanity to make an effort and live as if we had infinite time. Not thinking about time, not worrying about how we have spent it and how much we have left, is probably the best way to honor the gift of life. Having an infinite time mindset keeps time itself out of the life equation and helps us focus on the rest, on what we actually want and do and feel. It gets us off the hamster wheel. Time is there to serve us, it is somewhat of an axiomatic concept similar to existence or consciousness or identity. Something whose primacy we can perceive, but we cannot really explain; let alone control. Past a certain age, we get discouraged and no longer embark on new projects as we think there’s no time for them. And this happens because we get obsessed with the finiteness of time, because we cannot stop thinking about it. But I like to believe that time will always be there for us when the Universe deems it a critical ingredient of our endeavors. 

Many get a kick out of the idea of living each day as if it were their last. They get motivated and do things that they would otherwise procrastinate infinitely. And I respect and understand that, but I can’t do it. For me, living with the thought that tomorrow I’ll be gone is a total turn-off. Rather than inciting me to do things, it’d petrify me. I’d be demotivated and scared and busy thinking about the few hours that I’ve got left. What am I rushing to do all these things for? I’ll be dead tomorrow. I might as well take it easy and relax and live this last day like any other. Maybe I’d just live a day without responsibilities or deadlines or encumbrances or commitments or tasks. Without bills to pay and calls to make and groceries to buy. A day with the luxury of the purest peace of mind. Or maybe I’d spend some time organizing things for when I’m gone, like making an easily retrievable list of all my passwords or deciding who’s gonna get my guitars, or my books, or my vinyls. Or maybe I’d just write a few words for my kids; some simple and fun words to read, nothing too serious, something they’ll hold on to as bookmarks. I don’t know, stuff like that. 

Pretending to be living our last day, every day, feels a little like a fire drill, a rehearsal, a simulation. And maybe that is precisely why some people are all fired up by that and get stuff done. Because they know that, after all, it’s not true that they’re living their last day. Not entirely true, that is. I mean, nobody knows. I for one like to find other types of motivation to do things, possibly non imminent-death-related. Or just simply wait for things to happen if and when they should. As a fatalist, I believe in the old cliché that everything happens for a reason. And that there must be a reason why I didn’t climb mount Everest, or meet Frank Zappa, or learn Mongolian.

The only time I got to see Miles Davis live was right during the last year of his life, at Teatro Smeraldo in Milan, in March 1991. He’d die at age sixty-five in September from pneumonia and respiratory failure, among other things. I remember the excitement of being in front of a giant, someone who’s written the history of music. He was weak, out of breath, could barely play his horn, and spent the better part of the concert giving his back to the audience. At some point, he disappeared and his band kept playing without him for a while. He returned holding some pieces of cardboard with handwritten words on them saying that he wasn’t well and couldn’t speak and sincerely apologized. I wasn’t disappointed, and felt privileged anyway.  

I had seen Miles Davis in front of me, and if that had been my last day alive, it would have been fine.

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