There is a cooking term called "reduction". Simply put, it means boiling or steaming a liquid down into a concentrated form, much like orange juice concentrate is to the actual orange juice. The culinary concept of reduction is the same for other applications of "reduction". It means to minimize volume or number of.
How do you grapple with the idea of reducing a decade, a score, or a lifetime into a concentrated form? When the metal hits the road, what is left? I suppose this idea is not much different than when a loved one dies and the grieving family has to write an obituary.
The Broadway musical, "Rent", composed and written by the late Jonathan Larson, has a song "Seasons of Love", with lyrics so powerful that my mind connects with certain lines not infrequently. Over the course of the past seven days, I have had many opportunities to channel those lines, observing first-hand how quickly a period of time can be reduced and that the quality of the reduction is dependent on the quality of the time and its "contents".
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
How do you measure - measure a year?
In daylights - in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?
Larson hits the nail squarely on the head when he poses the question: "How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?" This question is heady because it causes one to ponder just what does a person want his or her legacy to be? Certainly not crumpled paper, box elder bug carcasses, cobwebs, old and faded periodicals, piles of paper haphazardly strewn about, twenty-six cents, and cardboard - pounds of cardboard. While this might describe my office at one time or another (minus the box elder bugs), this would not be what I want my life-reduction to look like. My crumpled paper, out-dated magazines and excess cardboard would dutifully be placed in the recycling bin, the cobwebs cleared as soon as they were noticed, the piles of paper at least straightened up and the twenty-six cents would go back into my wallet, most likely to be used towards the purchase of a cup of coffee somewhere. Whatever life-statement my "reduction" will render, I'd rather lean toward Larson's idea of "daylights, sunsets, midnights, cups of coffee" and loved ones.
Ancora imparo
