Most of us remember playing hide and seek as a kid, where everybody would hide except the one person who was supposed to find others. Imagine if you were the seeker and had to find others – except they could be anywhere in space. Woah! Right? Let’s add another dimension to it and say they could be anywhere in space or time. Woah! Woah! Right?
The seed of this blog came from two sources – the book I am reading right now called ‘The Atlas Six’, a dark fantasy about six magic students who encounter death at close quarters (without giving away too much). And the other source is at work, where almost everybody is overwhelmed with too much to do.
For the longest time, it has boggled my mind why others have trouble with time – there is only so much of it; prioritise it and get to it. It still boggles my mind, but now I understand that others’ minds do not work like mine. And this led to the message of this blog – maybe we all experience time in very different ways.
Forget others – each of us experiences time differently at various points in our lives. For example, I remember days when I had no idea where the day went. As a matter of fact, I do not know where the entire 2022 went. And then there are times when I keep looking at the clock, but it seems stuck. If I am reading an exciting book, time moves quickly. If I am doing, an arduous exercise routine clock cannot move fast enough. Similarly, when others say they have too much to do and too little time – their experience of time is very different from those who have a lot of free time.
Why is that? When our lives literally revolve around the clock, why is it not more predictable and constant? Without fail, the sun rises from the east every morning and sets in the west – so why doesn’t every second, minute, hour, and day go the same way for all of us? The only reason I can think of is that Sun/Earth are products of nature – their existence has nothing to do with us and our minds. Whereas time is a man-made construct that primarily exists in our minds – it is explained scientifically, but science is also very intellectual. Anything artificial is a human construct and hence subjective.
Why is this important? Because if we realise that time and its management is a manufactured construct and not a natural phenomenon like a hurricane or typhoon, then our relationship with it might change. We may realise that time is not our master, but we have created time instead. And who knows, it may lead to the realisation that we are masters of our thoughts and minds – not the other way around.
Time may be factual, but our experience of it is dependent on our relationship with our thoughts. If I was really enjoying my exercise, would time fly? Would I still have too much on my plate if I focused on things in my control? Would I have more time if I prioritised instead of getting lost in foggy thoughts?
What is your relationship with time? How do you experience it?