Leon Atkinson

Following is a song I wrote about 15 years ago. I thought I knew what it meant when I first wrote it, then I discovered a new meaning about seven years ago. I’ve discovered a more profound meaning, and it probably had this meaning all along. Before I explain, here are the words.

How Long Must You Cry

How long must you cry before you wonder why your life’s filled with pain? How long must you cry?

How long must you weep, crying yourself to sleep? Tear-stained memory. How long must you weep?

I know why you cry. I know why you cry. It’s for me. It’s for me. It’s for me. You cry for me.

How deep must you age before you turn the page? Gone is yesterday. How deep must you age?

How wise must you grow before you will know. I’m beyond your reach. How wise must you grow?

I know why you cry. I know why you cry. It’s for me. It’s for me. It’s for me. You cry for me.

When I first wrote this, this was kind of a bitter warning to someone who foolishly spurned my offer of friendship. I didn’t take the song very seriously and thought of it as “you don’t know what you’re missing”. The language is kind of extreme for the actual situation, but it’s stylized.

Years later, I discovered that instead of it being me speaking to someone else, it was someone I’d lost speaking to me. I imagined my father asking me how long I was going to feel sad about him dying. I took it as a statement to myself to suck it up, to repress the bad feelings.

Today, I started thinking of this song as an ideal version of myself, a version of myself who I dreamed I’d be as a child, speaking to myself as I really am. And I’m curious: when will I give up comparing myself to that unattainable ideal? When will I cease entertaining the idea of having a chance to replay the past?

So in this sense, I’m not attacking myself for feeling sad. There’s a version of me that could have been. There were decisions I made that got me where I am, and there were circumstances beyond my control that probably had a greater influence. It’s legitimate to mourn the loss of what could have been. The mourning is a doorway back into daylight. So, I’m pleased to find the song is not a bitter rant, nor a vigorous self-attack. It’s simply a question about when the truth will be accepted.

Thanks to the extra time provided by the holiday, I’ve finally put together a release of FreeTime 3, a pet project of mine for more than 10 years. This newest release is based on work I did on the software at Clear Ink from 2006 through 2009. Thanks to David Burk and Steven Nelson for sponsoring writing the code in the first place as their employee and more recently agreeing to donate the code back to the open source project. Their support is most generous!

FreeTime is a Web application written in PHP for MySQL that allows you to keep track of projects. It tracks comments, files and timesheet entries for projects divided up by clients and their divisions. Recently added features, not appearing in previous versions, include tasks, estimates and more reports. There’s also code that allows clients to log in to review work as if it’s a mini-site, but it hasn’t been tested in production. The most well-developed aspects of the application are related to timesheets, both gathering them from staff and then reporting on them.

I’m curious whether anyone will find the code useful, whether for educational or practical purposes. Its purpose was as a highly customized solution for Clear Ink, and it may have no utility outside the same type of consultancy. On the other hand, it could prove useful after some hacking. I would use it for myself if I do more consulting again.

You can download the source code from the FreeTime project page on SourceForge.