This blog was posted at 11:11 on November 11, 2011.

Once every one hundred years this simple minute passes (11/11/11 11:11) and rolls on the same as any other minute that ever existed. I consider 11:11 my daily time to brood on the future, as if once a day I was drawn to my rug for the call to prayer, and like a prayer, the energy that I exude is positive and harming no one. Today, however, seems more weighty, like the pure rarity of this moment will ensure my 11:11 wish is to come true, no matter how grand or obscure.

We give meaning to certain days in a year because of events that occurred in the past. This day, November 11, 2011 is recognized in several countries as Remembrance Day, where we think of war, not in order to glamourize it, but rather to realize why we do not want to be a part of it, now or in the future. A day that we remember people like my grandpa who travelled by boat across the Atlantic to unknown lands. The day is important, however the minute of 11:11 during this day is important for no reason other than it will not occur again for one hundred years.

At this exact moment (11/11/11 11:11) I am not sitting on a couch, writing more nonsense to share with you. These words were scheduled to display at the exact time. During the moment this is displayed I will be sitting somewhere quietly listening to a song of hope, waiting for the stars to pass the cloudy sky in the exact way, waiting for the snowflakes to be settled just so, waiting for the exact moment where all the minds in the city are in motion, and I will make a wish for the ages. At the time of writing, I was sitting in deep deliberation as to what my one wish in one hundred years could be, as if a magic genie popped out of a one hundred year-old bottle of enchanted beer to the one loser on earth who will put in a specific effort to make a wish on the one minute in one hundred years that means as little as the one before and the one after. I’m trying to decide if I will be doing something specific during the minute, as if it were my own sort of celebration, leaving my old self of indecision and selfishness behind with a DQ Blizzard or a Boreal Beer or cup of chai. Or if I should be listening to my favourite song during the entire minute. Should my wish be to never have another reason for the creation of a Remembrance Day, that is, to wish for world peace? Should I wish more selfishly, for a quick and painless end of my neurosis? For direction in a lifelong trip of wrong turns? Better posture? Relationship clarity? A Stanley Cup? An end to a long lasting loneliness?

It becomes redundant to celebrate every day or every week as an event. Like when the month of November is simultaneously Alzheimers Month, AIDS Month, Lung Cancer Month and Epilepsy Awareness Month. The Sweet Potato Awareness Months, the National Flag Days, the International Fig Weeks, the Plan Your Epitaph Days make it hard to take serious any day with a title. And to recognize a single moment in time because it will not occur for another 100 years does not acknowledge the moment just before and the moment directly after, which will never occur again either. But to live every moment greatly, whether it be numerically interesting or not, can be difficult when the first thing that comes to your mind when you wake up are words cursing the light of day, and then when you lay back down to sleep it feels like you had just woken up, although it was eighteen hours ago.

It seems to me that it is important to live as though one single moment is no more important than any other. If you don’t do this, you value most of your moments less than they are worth. It is, however, healthy and recommended that you routinely take a moment to briefly ponder the past, look forward to the future, and to be comfortable in the exact moment of the present. This is that moment, and I am doing so. Right now.

11/11/11 11:11