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Time

Michael considered fate at 22:12   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

Some people like to say that money is the most powerful thing around - the root of all evil, the cure of all ails. The what, why, how to every question asked from here to Wall Street.

I beg to differ. I think it's time. Time is the most slippery of creatures, that odd duck with the slippery oil - some sort of melding of the natural and the human mind - a creation made from the colaboration of mother nature and technology. Because time, afterall, is a human invention. There is no time in the true sense of the word, there is only states and the figurative movement of things from one state to the other - much like riding over the bridge into New Hampshire from Eliot, Maine.. It's more a matter of physical change than it is any sort of passing of a length of "time". Time, really, is a figment of our oh-so-impressionable minds.. yet so ingrained at this point that there is little point in even discussing an alternate reality. We are, in this case, truly prisoners of our own devices.

Time is the end all be all of everything. They should not have asked, willy-nilly, "What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?" but simply "What time is it?" because it would have done them about as good. Time controls us, shackles us, and commands the sort of attention that only a powerful master can. We are all, even those without watches - even far off tribes still unawares of the 24 hour day - slaves to the passing of time. But the real kicker of it all is that it's a double-headed snake this Time - dangerous at both ends. It's a curse and a cure.

"I don't have enough time"

"I can't wait that long"

On the one hand time is always nipping at our heels. "What time is it?" "When do we have to be there?" "How long do I have?" "When do you want this finished?".. today, time is pressure. Time, or the lack there of, manifests itself as deadlines and late fees and subscription limits. And in this incarnation, there is never enough of it. In the short term, time is our enemy. We work against it as if racing against it in some sort of sick twisted marathon.. but we're not happy to run our fastest, to charge ahead and try our hardest - oh no - we constantly check it's progress. Is it catching up to me? How far behind is it? Is it keeping pace? Quick, what time is it? Your average westerner can't go five minutes these days without glancing down at their wristwatch or cell phone and groan. Like the commercial where they tell you the average person spends XX.X years on the toilet during their lifetime, you'd have to imagine the average person spends a good amount of Time.. well.. checking the time. Think about that for a second. Oh wait, there I go.. bringing time into it again.

On the other hand time can be like molasses. Time can drag by so slowly you'd think the earth had stopped revolving 'bout the sun and the moon 'round the earth. Time, when you are waiting, is like holding your breath - like drowning while the surface and air and wind are within your sight, your grasp even. "Are we there yet?" "Can we go already?" "I can't wait till I'm 21". Yeah, ain't that the way it is. Time, my friends, is a tempting mistress - sometimes so sensual and attractive as to make you drool. And evil, because we've outlined above the exact opposite problem we have with time - yet somehow time has us both in love and in disgust and all at the same time. Bi-Polarity never looked so normal.

Time, also, is a bit edgy and not always clear as to it's meaning and intentions. Time can be a chunk of life (10 hours and 16 minutes), time can be an exact record of a given state of the universe (10:32.324567 PM), GMT), and time can even be hypothetical or rhetorical ("it's time to get a watch"). Time can spin you around and spit you out and you won't know whether to scorn it or desire it.

The older we get the faster time flies. This, I think, is easily explainable. At age 10 a single year of our life accounts for 10% of our existence as we know it. 10% of all our experiences, all the situations and predicaments and moments of euphoria, can fit into the space of a single year. As we grow and live to the ripe old age of 25, we have experienced so much more - we have had a lot more practice, essentially - and this makes the time that much more trivial. With anything, spending time with the idea of Time gives us a sort of familiarity with it and with that comes a comfort - and no one pays any attention to that which they already understand (or else girls wouldn't ever get any dates). So by 100, a year is barely 1% of our conciousness. 1% of our experience. No wonder we feel it so much smaller and insignificant than the 10 year old. A 10 year old has 10% of the space in which to fit his memories than a 100 year old. Which is not so curious in itself, but what is curious is the idea of a length of time being an amount of space - space in which to fit experiences - like a footlocker in the attic of memories. Time, as a space, is a collection of moments.

And at 100 we go back to desiring time - needing more of it. We fear death, that worst of states, and we even start to lose the time we already have. Memories fade. Entire groups of people are forgotten. The mind begins to get foggy and sometimes it is only now, this very moment, that we have for sure. And it's moments - not memories - that we have so the best we can do - the best we can hope for, is to make due with those oh-so-few that we do have. It's no wonder we love to dream so much and do so more and more as the years wane on and the real memories become more dim. Dreaming is one of the few ways out of time, out of the order and sense we have of the world around us - so, again, it's like the curse that is the cure. We dream to feel the passing of time - to experience movement, happens, the passage of events before our closed eyes.. but we also dream like it's a drug - our only escape from father time. Only in dreams can we disobey our sagely father and fly from one place to another, transport ourselves, outlive bullet wounds, and even sleep with some folks we probably won't get around to sleeping with in real life - because most logistical problems always come down to time. Time is the limiting factor so it's no surprise we, in our most child-like state of REM, run run run away from our father time.

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection, says Anais Nin, which may explain the excessive habit we humans have for record keeping - the writing down of all that happens because when it is gone, when the memories dissappear and only moments are left there is no sequence, no order to those moments, and with no order all time is lost and our very existence comes into question.. something we certainly don't like to consider - so we record record record. Write every little occurance down to satisfy our own flickering light of a life - give it meaning - and I would guess, more importantly - give proof of it's existence. The moment that is forgotten is the moment that perhaps didn't even happen. The moment a moment is no longer recallable is the moment that first moment is no longer a moment and therefore no longer fits into Time.

And moments bring us back to square one - Time is a human invention. Time is a way for humans to explain the transitions from one state to another - from one moment to the next. Time is not a real pliable thing. Time is not a rock or a bird or even air. Time is a figment - an explaination - an invention of the human mind, but an invention we will always embrace; are forced to embrace - even when it makes us late for work.

The bats are in the belfry
the dew is on the moor
where are the arms that held me
and pledged her love before
and pledged her love before

It's such a sad old feeling
the fields are soft and green
it's memories that I'm stelaing
but you're innocent when you dream
when you dream
you're innocent when you dream

running through the graveyard
we laughed my friends and I
we swore we'd be together
until the day we died
until the day we died

I made a golden promise
that we would never part
I gave my love a locket
and then I broke her heart
and then I broke her heart