In Columbia Pictures’s 2009 movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Swallow Falls is home to Baby Brent Sardines which catches and cans… yup: sardines. When the business fails, the locals are stuck eating the unwanted sardines for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In real life, the island of Sardinia was the world’s sardine capital for hundreds of years and they, like Swallow Falls, derived most of their economy from sardines. Monetizing a resource is the first step to creating an industry. The trick, of course, is to remain relevant by maintaining the right relationship between supply and demand. For many of us, time is that ubiquitous resource.
Having so much of it is great for all kinds of things, but without a sense of being present, of maximizing the moment and finding the need for which any moment can be utilized, it can lead to a serious problem. Over the last ten months, we have been inundated with images, both real and imagined, of two very divergent groups: our soldiers who have been utilizing time under the most stressful conditions as they are learning Torah, studying for exams, stealing any spare moment to reach out to family and so much more. And then we consider those sitting in captivity wishing they had what to do and where to go.
A third group includes all of us who are lucky enough to not be included in the first two: what are we doing with our time and what can we be doing with our time? How have we contributed to a more equitable world? Will we produce in ways that will benefit the diversity of mankind? Or will we look back when this is all over and see that we are stuck with a bunch of smelly fish?
