Time, and How to Lose It
Have you ever really thought about time? (Go with me on this.) I have been thinking about time a lot lately. Not because I am 51 years old, not because I am working on a space/time continuum dimensional refraction machine for DARPA (not that I would admit it if I was) but because time just keeps going on. This is what I discovered recently. (I know, I know, most of you knew this already!)
The thing is, I believe most people view time as something that actually changes depending on what they are doing. For instance, if you are standing in line at a “convenience store” while various idiots that should be using their hard earned money to pay for food for their kids are throwing it away on lottery tickets (OK, I digress.) Anyway, while standing in said line, time seems to drag on forever. However, when you are enjoying building a PC from various cool, high tech parts and seeing it come to life and boot up flawlessly the first time with no hassles, time seems to fly by! (OK, so I have geeky pleasures!) Anyway, the bottom line is… I have discovered that, actually, whether you are standing in the line thinking evil thoughts about idiots and lotteries, or, whether you are enjoying getting your geek on, time is ACTUALLY moving at a precise, stable, actual forward motion. Never backward. Always forward. One second followed by the next. Sigh.
And time can not be retrieved. A second gone is… gone. And if you want more seconds, or more minutes, in a given hour… you won’t get it. It is always 3600 seconds, or 60 minutes… no more, no less. So, if you try and pack more “stuff” that you need to get done into a given hour… well, you will only have an hour to do it.
“OK, OK,” you say, “What’s up with the Doctor?” Well, much as I would like to oh… say, get a podcast done… like I promised yesterday… well, there’s only 3600 seconds; only 60 minutes, in an hour. Only 24 hours in a day. And, sadly, I DO have to sleep at night (though admittedly, I haven’t been doing as much of that as I should lately!)
Anyhoo, here’s what can happen. Commit yourself to too many things, have too many major life changes (like changing jobs,) and actually, selfishly, make time to eat and sleep, and you have the magic formula for losing time. Time never to be returned. Time that just keeps ticking on.
Stupid clock.