I turned around
and I don’t know
where time had gone.
Time had slipped somewhere,
I don’t know.
Time had slipped out of my glass
and onto the floor.
I had slipped with it.
Dear Patient Reader,
How is time felt? The emotions attached to spending a nice, slow evening. As opposed to the rush of a demanding stressful situation, and how time seems to test us in so many ways when time isn’t in our favour. Time is felt through our emotions, making it very personal and subjective. Yet, however varying our opinions are, we seem to fall into the same trap of inevitable time vacuums. We never really know where the time in our own glass spilled into. Time slipped out of the glass, it splashed and cascaded. Time zigzagged, scratched, and scraped the surface of our living space.
We have a limited understanding of time, that abstract entity we all want more of, but feel that we have increasingly less of. “Where does time go?” It may be slipping into loopholes. Rather, it goes into creating our perception of the everyday, of the memories we make. Life experiences are continuously constructed by how our time was marked by events and actions. Another tentative question about time, “Where do we have to go to find it?” To find time we have to make it. Time is for us to make, to give and plan time for the things we want to do. If I make time, I’ll get time. Which is difficult to do. Our perception of time depends on how we set up and live our lives. Which is the reason why different lifestyles and routines experience, and feel, time differently. Though we all have the same amount of time, the passing of time is felt according to our individual timescales, which vary. “An animals’ ability to perceive time is linked to their pace of life”.[1] Our current pace of life, particularly in towns and cities, has become so fast and demanding that we are bound to perceive time as something that passes incredibly fast.
It’s interesting to look at and observe how children feel the passing of time. The last time you met could have been two years ago, but to them, it feels like it was just a few months ago. I haven’t done any reading on the topic, though from what I’ve heard, children haven’t lived for as many years as an adult has. As a consequence, their timescale is much smaller than ours, which slows down time perception in kids. A probable reason why children enjoy the present moment in ways adults cannot.
There is nothing more constructed by man than the division of time, a division that varies from epoch to epoch and from space to space. A division of time by man that cuts, controls, and defines the duration of our lives. As a result, it has affected our relationship with the past as well as with the present. Time zones and time differences, which organise and construct our day play pivotal roles in defining our daily activities. It provides structure to weeks, months, and years that would otherwise be incomprehensible
Till the next.
P.S. Have a pleasant week ahead.
P.P.S. The next post is titled ‘The Rule of Recentering’, which is about the beneficial role of being able to control our emotions to make better decisions.
References
[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130916102006.htm
https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/concordance-des-temps/l-homme-et-le-temps-mesure-et-maitrise-3502184
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