Time. A valuable commodity to some. Not so much to others.
You, for example. Clock-watching your work day. Each hour creeping by as if in a time warp. Rushing home for dinner. Spend time with the kids. Must get to bed because tomorrow is another day.
Hump day. Payday. Weekends. Vacations. Doctor appointments. Taxes. All controlling your life through time. Me? I’m a retired empty-nester. I couldn’t give a shit less.
Time is so important, we invent ways to keep it. Grandfather clocks. Cuckoo clocks. Alarm clocks. Our cell phones. But the worst is our watches.
You can keep time on a $19.95 Timex. Or, a $19,500.00 Rolex. It’s the same damn time either way, but I guess time appreciates it more being kept on a Rolex.
My watch tells time. It also tells me how many steps I’ve taken. My pulse rate. The weather. Plays music. Gives me my text messages. It’s even joined me in a threesome with my hand on occasion.
Time. It’s more important in the beginning. Not so much at the end. It’s usually an excuse to not do something.
“Dad, can you come over and help me re-sod the yard tomorrow?”
“Sorry, honey. I don’t have the time.”
Even our travel is set to time. The sign along the highway reads 55 MPH. That means, given good weather, you will have traveled 55 miles in 60 minutes of your time. So, instead, we drive 70 MPH and stop at Starbucks on the way.
The earth rotates clockwise every 24 hours. It circles the sun every 365.26 days. The “flat-earthers” think the sun rotates around us and that if we drive long enough, we would eventually fall off the earth. I don’t have time for that shit either.
So how did this time thing start anyway? Just how did that conversation go?
“What do you wanna do?”
“I don’t know. We did the wheel yesterday. What do you wanna do?”
“Well, I wanted to invent fire, but that damn Igmo of the Fart clan beat me to it. Who knew you could start a campfire that way?”
“Oh, I know! Let’s invent time!”
“See, we can pound this stick in the ground and when the shadow hits that rock, we’ll call that noon!”
“OK. Fine. Who gives a shit anyway.”
Time. The Mayans carved pyramids and temples to account for time. Hieroglyphics around the world were carved on temples to keep track of time. From such humble beginnings to a billion dollar industry.
Now imagine that the entire existence of all of mankind is but a speck of time. A blip no bigger than a pinhead on a chart of time. There is truth to the moral, “Time and tide wait for no man.” Or woman.
We can’t control it. All we can do is survive it. Each birthday. Each anniversary. Each birth or death. All marks of time.
The next time you come home after a hard day of clock-watching at work. Dinner is over. The kids are in bed. Take your watch off and put it on the dresser. Then, grab a beer and go out on the deck. Find a chaise lounge and lay in it.
When you are laying there, realize that time is irrelevant as we know it. We are the past, present, and future all at once.
Don’t believe me?
It may be Saturday, November 17, 2018, at 11:30 a.m. where you are. But somewhere else, it may be Sunday, November 18, 2018, at 3:30 p.m. at exactly the same time. How many times have you had to reset “your time” because of travel?
Now, look up. Find a star. Look at it twinkling and sending its light to feed your eyes. Now realize that it’s dead. It died years ago and is pitch black and cold. Yet you still see its light.
A light year is how many miles can light travel in one earth year. Light travels at 186,288 MPS. That means light will travel 5.9 trillion miles every 365.26 days. For light to reach us from the closest star system, it would take 4.3 light years. If the sun were to completely burn out and die, we wouldn’t know it for 8.4 light minutes.
When you look up at a twinkling star and imagine your life, you are looking at its past from your present. Imagine the legacy of burning bright long after you are gone.
Time. Who gives a shit.
