time...

back from the tiring process of engaging everyone's collective exhaustion with me, i return to contemplate something much simpler today.
today, i think about time.

we have been waiting, all summer, for the construction of an overpass. the overpass itself is designed to save us time. but we are impatient, and it's beginning to look like it will not be finished before the winter, making us wait yet longer, it's unfinishedness looming in our vision every day, mocking our need to get there faster.

people say, often without much thought or regard, as is standard for most addages and cliches, that rome was not built in a day. but i wonder, sometimes, as i am wondering today, just how long it DID take to build rome.
even just the collosseum, if someone can say "just" like that, as in "just the atlantic ocean" or "just the universe" or "just the measure of a man's soul". with all our technological advances, all our knowledge and skill and understanding and tools and machines, it is taking this long just to build one overpass. the romans, without these things, or at least without many of them, built the colosseum. the overpass is intended to hold the weight of a few cars. the collosseum was intended to hold the weight of several thousand people.
how long did it take?
how long were they willing to wait?

patience and time, it seems, are inexorably, intrinsicly linked, reciprocal relations that seldom speak to each other for fear of the differences between them in this new age of restlessness. but how much time are we truly willing to sacrifice for the things that are worth it, that will renew wonder in the world, that will display proudly our strengths and abilities and worth? how long are we willing to be patient as the world laughs at our tempered pace?

a few things to think about:
it took michealangelo 4 years, 5 months to paint the ceiling of the sistine chapel.
the colosseum in rome took 12 years to be completed. not long at all, when you think about it.
the parthenon in greece took 39 years to complete.
it took steven king 30 years to complete the dark tower trillogy.

what are we building?
will it be worth the wait?