About Time
The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali
We lose it, manage it, save it, waste it, then wish we had more of it. Time has become a kind of slippery, anxiety inducing method of measuring life, constantly grappled with. Way back when, time passing was marked by natural cycles. The sun rose and set on a see-saw with the moon gently, informing wake and relax. Today, unless one is orbiting a blackhole or hanging out with Elon on Mars, the need to closely eye the time like a sad day-trader monitoring their stocks comes from an unhealthy and misguided impulse that something important will be missed. The opposite is true. Second by second, rung by rung, the day-to-day becomes a hamster wheel, incessantly running to the tune of iCalendar alerts. Although most of the world rely upon them, schedules are little prisons for impromptu opportunities.
In Netflix’s Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates, Bill’s assistant remarks that despite his wealth and intellect, time is the one thing that Bill can’t accumulate more of. It’s the one thing that he must use as wisely as the rest of we plebs. Some say time is money – but this thought triggers a dubious little whisper, warning that a life led as such is a constant blackmailing of oneself. Although not monetary, time is a kind of currency for life and it’s inevitable that it will be spent.
What is left after time? Memories. By examining memories one can measure the return on investment of a certain way of life. And value won’t be weighed according to one’s aptitude for time-management or efficiency. Unlike time, memories can be accumulated and if observed, the good ones inform how time should be invested in future. And when we die, it’s the warm memories created bit by bit with others that morph time past into tangible treasures that live on in others.
Albert Einstein said, ‘Time and space are modes by which we think, not conditions in which we live.’
Getting caught in the web of plans, routines and expectations is a choice, not something dictated by time itself. Time moulds to the parameters placed on it.
A watch is aptly named for literally observing time pass by. Surely, there are better ways to own it. Better ways to fill a treasure chest.