The Theory of Pie
All each of us have to offer is time. Time which is incredibly finite but the only thing we have of genuine value to give. Mom likes to see time as a pie (I think a cake is too abundant and thick). In my past, I have tended to divide my pie into sections that address work and relationships in odd and likely typical ways.
Work almost always gets the biggest slice. Gotta pay those bills because a homeless guy has a pie but no means to slice it up. I’ve never resented the amount of pie that work gets. I like to work. Being busy, being productive, has always been a bit of a thrill and, while I have my vices steeped in the tea of alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine (my beauty regimen as I say), I am a true junkie for the feeling of a job well done, a night of sleep well earned.
Eschewing any desire for long-term stability, the piece of pie that working receives is a slice given to a bit of a hustler, a rolling stone, moving from a myriad of professions throughout my six decades. I suppose part of the draw is the new car smell of a fresh job, new challenges, different puzzle boxes to open.
Addressing the origin of the Theory of Pie, my mother noticed a different pattern of mine. When I have fallen in love, whomever is the object of my affection gets a hefty slice often to the detriment of pie for my family. In the past, my love interests take the center of the universe, and in some ways, another new challenge and sexy puzzle box. In reflection, I have tended to view my couplings in the same lens as I have working. A job to do as well as I can and with actual work combined with the very serious labor involved in growing a relationship, there has been only a few thin slivers of pie for anyone else.
A revelation occurred following the Monstrous Divorce of 2022: a relationship based on a work approach is likely to fail. Treating a romance like a shift at Subway is a zero sum game. Also, it seems that method is often unreciprocated and I’ve found myself effectively a mule dragging partners along with me.
Following my time in Wichita when I became reintroduced to the joys of my family and the slow scarring up of recent wounds, I found that I wanted to give them more of the pie of my time as well as something I had never even considered: giving myself some of it. Not that I need to give myself some pie but that I wanted to provide some room for me. I discovered that my family is fuel for my soul and that my time with myself—working out, taking walks, hunkering down with almost no communication, reading, catching movies—had become a genuine oasis.
The Theory of Pie is established in my day-to-day. How much of my time is left after, say, a long work week of eight shows in six days? Who gets that time? How much do I gatekeeper for myself?
The theory also plays out in how I view the time others give to me. I have a few long-term friendships and when I receive none of their pie, I can’t get upset—they each have the time they have to give and there just isn’t enough to go around. I’ve come to appreciate any pie I get rather than complain about what I don’t have. I mean, it is unseemly to walk around life, bitching about getting less pie than you think you ought to enjoy. Any pie is better than no pie, amiright?
