The clock never stops ticking. Of all the manmade
constructs, time is the most destructive. Through our use of time, we devalue
ourselves, and erode away our essence. Every morning we get up and look at our
clocks in dismay upon seeing the time. Only an hour until work. Only an hour
for lunch. My time is worth so little, yet my time is literally all I have.
From the moment we can begin to process time, we understand that we have only a
finite time to live. Every day from birth, the clock ticks constantly onto our
demise. Time, dear reader, is all we have, and all we have is an idea created
by man to determine our intrinsic value. Time is arbitrary. It’s inconsistent.
Time changes so much to the point where it doesn’t matter, and yet we grasp it
tight to our chest in the fear that it can slip away from us. But what purpose does
time have outside of giving us a monetary value? What happens when one stops
relying on time and simply starts to live?
John was a simple man, as evidenced by his simple
name. He went to work when his hours told him to, and he did not when his hours
said not to. Soon his whole life revolved around his. His hours not working
were simply a count down until he worked again, and his working hours were a
count down until he could be at home again. A ceaseless cycle of countdowns
leading to other countdowns. Life became an algorithm: When X=9:00, Y=work;
When X=5:00, Y=? John would spend his working days in a mindless cycle of
emails, phone calls, and idle gossip over his co-workers neighbours at coffee;
while his nights were spent just as rigidly scheduled: 5:30 arrive home, 6:00
supper, 6:30 the news, 7:00 unremarkable crime procedural, 8:00 video games
with friends, 9:30 get ready for bed, 10:00 read, 10:30 sleep. So lost in this
endless cycle of his own creation, his once passions became chores that needed
to be done so his day would feel complete.
With each passing day, John lost joy in his
activities. So focused on the passage of time, he forgot how to enjoy being
alive. As so many do, John grew depressed at his mindless repetition. He hated
what his life had become; mindlessly clocking the hours, yet he could not bring
himself to stop it.
Then, one horribly non-routine day, John lost his
job. How this happened is not of import, the only thing that affects the story
is that it happened. John was lost. He had no job to center his life around;
the mere concept of time had become completely meaningless to him. On that day,
John sat in a park. John had not sat in a park without an express purpose in
many years. Today, in complete disarray, he simply sat on a bench and watched a
pigeon.
The pigeon would hop around the grass in front of
John, occasionally stopping and thrusting its head into the grass only to
reappear with a morsel of bread proudly in its beak. The pigeon soon noticed
John watching it, and would, at times, pause and simply stare back at John.
Could this pigeon see what turmoil John was experiencing? Or was this some
natural response to being watched? (Most likely the answer is the latter and regrettably
not the former) John sat entranced by this pigeon, mesmerized by the way the
bird moved, the way it would cock its head in question at John’s staring, and
its indifference as it rooted around for food.
Once the pigeon had taken its fill, with one last
questioning look at John, it took off and flew away. John watched the bird fly
for as long as he could see, and for a long period after, John simply stared at
the point of which he lost sight.
With a shiver he realized that night had fallen, and
that he had spent the entire afternoon at this park. He hadn’t answered a
single phone call, replied to any emails, or read a single text for hours. In
fright he pulled out his phone, only to find that he didn’t care to reply to
anything as he unlocked the screen. His car was parked across the street, but
John decided to walk to his apartment. The brisk air felt good on his skin, and
it cleared his mind. All the fears of time constraints and deadlines melt off
of him as he walked down the street.
He was smiling as he unlocked the door to his
apartment. He made some food, watched a movie, and then went to sleep—all without
checking a clock.
Mankind needs some way to keep track of events and
deadlines, so time was a necessary invention. One of the necessary evils in a
world filled with necessary and unnecessary ones. Yet our dependence and utter
devotion to time has corrupted it into something that is dreaded. Time is an
invention that is meant to serve us, and yet we serve it. We worship at the
feet of the all might clock and calendar, and into it we feed our very life
force, until all we have left is a feeling of emptiness and self-pity.
Time is so integral in our day to day lives, that it
has become the focal point of our very existence. No longer a mere convenience,
it dictates every part of life. Imagine how life would be if we expended the
energy wasted worrying about time on something useful? Yet no one can escape
this worry, especially in this age of time saving. Even I, as I sit here typing
this, am worrying about the time it is taking me! We rate relationships by the
length of time that we have known the other person, instead of by how they make
us feel; what they mean to us. When I look at my friends, is my oldest friend
my dearest one? No, but that does not diminish the fact that she is still my
oldest friend. When I look at how long I’ve known my best friends, does their
relationship to me become less meaningful simply because I have not known them
for as long? No.
Time, we like to pretend, is a linear thing with a
beginning and an end. We like to pretend that time exists as the same for
everyone as it does us, and that time does not repeat itself. Time, seemingly
simple, is irritatingly complex! And yet it governs our life so completely! I
do not escape this. I allow time to govern my life. I follow a schedule and get
thrown whenever I break it for some strange reason. I hate it. I wish I could
appreciate my life outside of the time constraints I put on myself, and I am
endeavouring to do just that. But in a world filled with deadlines, I have
chosen a profession that thrives on the deadline.
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