I think time must be one of the largest jokes the universe ever played on us. There are so many philosophies, mentalities, songs, poems, physics lessons, methods of measuring...phrases...
It's about time
One day at a time
Time will only tell
I don't have time
Time waits for no man
Time flies
Time and time again...
and the funny thing is there all true because the word time is such an arbitrary, multi faceted way of labeling something we all perceive differently. A person with a terminal diagnosis might say 'how much time do I have?' or 'it's my time'. I might ask 'do I have time for a cigarette' or say 'time to quit'. Is it all the same time? Physics aside, time seems to run in a linear path, for most of us who aren't higher than a koala on eucalyptus leaves. We 'make time' or look back on 'lost time', we can 'time things perfectly' or 'not be on time' at all. Because time is a really a way of neatly placing the activities we engage in a box, we can introduce prepositions like 'I've been here before' or 'we'll talk about it later, because now is not the time'. Boring endeavours seem to slow down time. Exciting ones never last long enough. That seems a bit unfair. The thing is, as fickle as a word it seems, time seems to be the most important concept of all...time. If we 'don't make good use of our time' we're inefficient. If we 'just can't find the time' we're too busy. You can't ignore time. Then again you can't really focus on it for very long with any real conviction, because time on it's own is nothing. There are bunches of nerves in your brain that tell you what time you need to eat, what time you need to sleep, what light is refracting from the digital clock onto your retinas telling you what time of day it is. Is that time? It takes time to fall in love. Sometimes it doesn't. Ants can't tell time. But they have a very strict schedule. It takes time to memorize something. It seems like it takes less time to forget it. You can have 'the time of your life' or you can have 'the worst time ever'. You can say 'remember that time...' or it's time to move on' or it's 'timeless' or it's 'time we got rid of that'. Time speeds up as you get older (does that mean time slows down as you get younger?). Or maybe there are just more memories to condense so it seems that way. You can't just pluck a relative moment from your short stock of film reel, you have to sift through a warehouse of dusty life snapshots. each time realizing how many more you've accumulated. Maybe. Time can make you really sad. Or it can make you really happy. I get sad when I look back on 'the good times' but i'm ecstatic about the 'times ahead'. I wish there was an unlimited lifetime to do everything possible. There isn't, but that's what makes it so special. 'My time is precious'. So yours. I've said time 52 times. Time to go to bed.
