On Time

My own relationship with time is a mix of mild curiosity and mind numbing fascination. I seldom wear a watch and yet I’m a punctual man all the same. Indeed some have said too punctual. It is not unlike me to arrive a half hour early for an engagement. I’d rather wait than be late. That said I am of the belief that I never arrive late. I always arrive just when I mean to. It is the bane of our generation to be a slave to time. Watched clocks never tick yet my colleagues here are oft to be found staring absently at the wall where a large quartz time piece records the passing of the seconds. Willing it ever onward as it circumnavigates the face.

Yet how foolish am I to think I can live in a frenzied city and pay no heed to time. Even seemingly mundane actions take careful thought and planning, like going to work for example. It’s a journey of no more than four miles and should be covered in fifteen minutes by car, yet it takes the best part of an hour. But I don’t mind the traffic and I don’t mind the fact that I rarely get the car into third gear. I sometimes sit there watching all the other commuters drift by. Their furrowed brows like neon signs advertising their frustration. Tooting their horns at the car in front the instant the light goes green. As if those two or three seconds will make all the difference. Patience might not be a life saver but in a car the lack of it might just get you killed.

It’s not just travel and the rush to keep appointments that makes us slaves to time. No. Fashion and the battle to remain young and beautiful are equally guilty. I often thank the stars that I was born a male for if not the constant battle against the aging process would surely drive me mad. From anti aging creams to mud packs to revitalift whatsits and rejuvenating thingamajigs it’s enough to make the head spin. Alas it is the age in which we live. We are force fed a diet of time. We buy products that will help us do things faster, get us there quicker, in order to save time, so that we’ll have more time to do various other time saving tasks, fruitlessly trying to beat the years.

In the grand scheme of things, as far time is concerned, man is but a fleeting notion. It has been said the if you stretch your arms out to the side, as far as your wing span will allow, and take the distance from the tip of your left hand to the tip of your right to be the history of our planet. All life on our planet would be cradled in the palm of your right hand. Now if you were to simply file your nails, you’d have wiped out mankind. Such is the insignificance of our species.

Time is relative. But I have become increasingly convinced that time is no longer fixed. A minute in a city goes by in a flash. Where as in rural areas a minute can seem like an eternity. But are we not partly to blame for the swiftness of the years? We all at one time or another have been guilty of wishing time to pass. Hoping the days fly by and the weekends pass in slow motion. Yet time beats us always. Time cannot be beaten nor overcome. Time is immortal. It was here before we were and it will still be here, long after we’ve gone.