The hands of the clock have begun to whirl around like a pinwheel in a hurricane. I try closing my eyes whenever I pass a timepiece but the ticking seems to get louder and louder until I imagine dogs howling in protest. I tossed one malevolent time piece in the trash and it stopped. But when I righted it, the battery fell back in place and the second hand’s gleeful rock around the cloud reached warp speed.
It hasn’t always been this way. The time span from Thanksgiving to Christmas used to approach Infinity. Now, especially since the outrageous advancement of the start of Christmas season to mid-June, it appears to be a quarterly event. So, being a scientist, I determined to contemplate time and uncover the root cause of this unprecedented acceleration that defies the laws of physics, sanity and Einstein.
Einstein in his famous 1905 paper On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies defines time. I read it. You should read it too then call me and tell me what it means.
Most people see time as linear. The past is “behind us,” and the future “ahead of us.” The Biblical view of time focuses on the cycle of events happening within a year and the relationship these events have with God’s eternal plan. In Biblical time life should not be overly concerned with our time on this earth, but with our minds outside of time in the heavens.
Time is an enigma. It can seem as slow as the formation of a stalagmite or as fleeting as a snowflake and still be the same minute shared by two people. Time is the great healer of souls, spirits and hearts.
It is as the measure of our life that it has the most power.
It is an oxymoron that as time speeds up, we slow down. I am not at all enthralled by the effect of time on the body and mind. With time, muscles decay and loose skin flaps like a wrinkled handkerchief when you lift an arm. Time blends glistening raven strands with grey and white threads that seem to appear from nowhere. Time can curve a spine, stoop shoulders, stiffen knees and kink fingers into bony geometric shapes. Time is very giving. It gives us pot bellies, hair sprouts in awkward places, free skin tags and distinct noises, vocalizations, grunts and wheezes that we never planned to utter.
The trouble with time is it prohibits back-ups, forcing us to move forever forward. We might be able to get an occasional do-over but it isn’t the same as a reboot. We worry and wonder if we used time wisely or wasted it. Did we take it and use or share it, or did we run out of it? How much time do we have left and what will we do with it? I admonish you not to wait until it is too late to learn the value of time.
Looking back in time, I am confounded by the many crossroads, forked trails and steep paths that materialized while I was not paying attention or concentrating on the ground beneath my feet. I recall standing at crossroads and choosing a lane that led me to the shiny package and beckoning strobe light rather than one lined by people in need or tools of labor. I regret those choices.
When it comes to forks in the road, I am known for taking the one least traveled. Those have often led me on exciting adventures, new outlooks and challenges as well as plunges from high cliffs and encounters with alien beings. Happily, I always found the secret path back to the main road.
I struggled on those steep, upward winding paths where progression was slow and calculated and the average pace was to take one step forward into growth and slide back two into safety. The most rewarding culminated in a step up to the peak where all you could so was spin dizzily, wildly in awe at what you could now do and see. Indomitable will finds a way.
Time is change. It defies the natural human instinct to play it safe and plant deep roots in our comfort zone where the soil is easily depleted and we cannot grow. Growth implies moving forward, leveraging our time. Take it from Rocky Balboa, “it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward.”
Take a time-out to build and savor relationships that linger in your thoughts and dreams, offering comfort and sustenance. From time to time, saturate your days with passion and meaning and fill your world with the best that you have to give. Give your love, and in time you’ll have even more of it.
Stop checking sundials in the shade. The real voyage of discovery goes beyond seeking a new panorama but in finding new eyes to see it as it is.
I have observed that spirituality and religious sentiment tend to develop and deepen as we grow older. This might be a case of CYA.
Nevertheless, we seem to feel a need to lean on something larger, stronger and more abiding than human beings. If our faith is already strong, we look to God for light, hope and peace and feel the purity of His truth. Others, abandoned by worldly goods, distractions and reality, realize that a puzzle piece is missing from the box, keeping them from finishing the picture they are assembling. They search to fill that elusive empty space clinging to the hope that it is something so absolute, unadulterated and eternal that it makes up for everything else.
In time they will find it.
Time becomes mysterious when we think about past, present, and future. We remember what happened yesterday but we can’t remember tomorrow. Everyone is born young and then grows old. We can choose what to do next in our lives, but we can’t undo things that have already happened in the past. The past can be archived but the future is nameless. Why is that?
J.M.E. McTaggart, in his 1908 paper, The Unreality of Time argued that time is unreal because descriptions of it are necessarily either contradictory, circular or insufficient. McTaggart pointed out that we see the present moment we are living through as the only present time. But, all other moments, past and future, also either were or will be the present time at some point or other. So how do we reconcile this contradiction? McTaggart’s detailed analysis led to the tensed and tenseless theories of the passage of time.
The tenseless theory of time requires elimination of all talk of past, present and future in favor of a tenseless ordering of events using only phrases like “earlier than” or “later than”. For example, “we will win the game” can be adequately expressed as, “we do win the game at time t, where time t happens after the time of this utterance”. I suggest that if one of McTaggart’s followers shows up at your kid’s baseball game, abandon the stadium.
Time is a teacher that provides a lesson in everything. Today there is something that everyone considers to be impossible. And one day, someone will find a way to do it. Every failure is a stepping stone to success and a trial of your faith and inner strength. March forward hero! ~ Swami Sivananda
Clearly life flows on in time in spite of us, imbedding scars on some and kisses on others. Eventually each of us runs out of time. The passing of time is inescapable.
I beg you not to die with your music still in you. Too many people are still getting ready to live, believing they are not good enough or the time is not right. The time is now.
Recently I have discovered that the aging process in our society cuts-off the very elderly and infirm from the experiences of continuity and renewal that make the end of life meaningful. Our society does not provide well for the aged, psychologically or economically. Too many wonderful people are dying bereft of love. My heart is broken for them.
At this time, I will close with a scattering of phrases known to all of us that underscore the ubiquity of time. I challenge you to come up with others and submit them to this site. Let’s see who comes up with the timeliest phrase.
Borrowed time;About time;In the right place at the right time;From time to time;Prime time;Time will tell;The first time;Closing time;Once upon a time;Time flies;Time zone;Third time is a charm;Time off;Buy time;No time;Every time;By the time;Before your time;Lost time;Out of time;Time’s up
