"Seven Minutes"

I want to share my appreciation and eventual hope for
   The Number Seven.

No, not the —
   Seven Days of The Week
   Seven Notes of The Diatonic Scale
   Seven Samurai
   Seven Chakras
   Seven Heavenly Virtues
   Seven Deadly Sins
   Seven Lucky Gods
   Seven Daughters of Eve
   Seven Last Words of Christ
   Seven Hills of Rome
   Seven Wonders of The World
   Economic G7
   Chicago Seven
   Seven Year Itch
And by extension,
   Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs
   Seventh Heaven
   Seventh-Day Adventist Church
and the Dominant Seventh Chord.

Rather, I am talking about something
   more important,
   more noble,
   more fundamental to who humans really are . . .
This, my Friend,
   is the utility and majesty of what humans can do with 
S E V E N  M I N U T E S.

When home, humans typically take seven minutes to —
   fall asleep
   hard boil an egg or make oatmeal
   empty a dishwasher and put those dishes away
   sort mail take out the trash and recycling
   create a To-Do list
   fill a medium-size aquarium.

When not at home, this is —
   the average time for a medical visit
   the maximum length for an ideal business story
   the time it takes to listen to Jesus’s Sermon On The Plane
   the number of minutes subtracted from your life
      by smoking a cigarette for just one minute
   and the time it took a California jury to convict
      a notorious drug dealer.

Fortunately, music has befriended this time frame,
   giving rise to —
   John Dowland’s Farewell for solo lute
   the opening movement of Mozart's Mass in C minor
   the third movement from Stravinski’s Petrushka ballet score
   Light My Fire by The Doors
   Third Stone From The Sun by Jimi Hendrix
   Aja by Steely Dan
   Range A Cappella’s vocal performance of the entire plot line of          the musical "Hamilton"
   And this poet’s chamber work dedicated to his Father.

Yet, what is likely the most noteworthy about seven minutes is:
1) The upper limit of how long a preschooler can resist
     eating a marshmallow in a clinical setting AND
2) The upper limit for the average American male to
     complete sexual intercourse — from start to finish.

Is this true Cause and Effect at work here,
   or merely an amusing coincidence?
Does it have anything to do with the male’s sperm
   (basically a FedEx for DNA) being the simplest cell in the body,
   whereas the female's egg is the most complex?
What’s really going on here ? ? ?

So, what if male preschoolers,
And by extension, American males,
   were taught from an early age to
   salivate at the sight of tofu bars
   sweetened only with a touch of Monk fruit?
Thereby allowing desire to blossom more slowly.
Might there be a positive effect beyond satisfying
   their romantic partners
   more completely?

The implications of cultivating delayed gratification
   in the American male psyche —
   the dilution of toxic hubris,
Could be significant and far reaching,
   and on a global scale, including:

Banning assault weapons
Removing all land mines
Ending childhood marriage and ‘honor killings’.

Mandating elementary school curriculum to include —
   financial literacy, time management, and cooking skills
Lowering the voting age to 16
Forgiving all student debt.

Rapidly phasing out fossil fuels while fully supporting
   renewable energy
Retrofitting buildings, bridges, and power stations
Restoring wetlands.

Creating a Futurist post at a cabinet level
Establishing community art centers
Publicly funding all elections . . .

All of these would be glorious gifts to
   The Future People of the Seven Continents. 

 

 

 

July 2023

 

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©2023, Michael Smolens