The Hazards and Horrors of Time
Apologies to Albert Einstein and H.G. Wells, but time is something few of us outside astronomy sciences understand and almost all of us fear. Simply because we are alive, we are encased in time which often crushes us, threatens us, or confuses us, especially as we get older.
Time and timing is critical to everything we do and every decision we make, whether our choice results in success beyond our imaginings or total disaster. We become pressed for time, we take time, we waste time, we kill time, we try to find time, we have a good time, we make up time, we don’t have enough time, we have time on our hands. None of us can escape time, nor can we ever make up for the time we have lost. Time is always tugging at us, it is always in the back of our minds or staring us in the face. Time is our ally, but time is also our enemy.
I’ve always envied those people whose internal time clocks automatically wake them, as though they purposely set an alarm in their heads. I envy those who can look at the sky or shadows on the sidewalk and accurately measure time. Sadly, I am among that block of people who easily lose track of time or whose sense of time has become warped by time’s passage. Too often I discover that things I think occurred last week or last month or last year actually occurred five years ago. As we age, time runs together, like dye colors in a madras jacket bleed into the fabric.
Someone once told me that finally reaching adulthood is the moment we realize that time moves at a more rapid pace. As youngsters time moves especially slow as we keep waiting to hit those traditional benchmarks of life, like turning thirteen when we’re finally a teenager rather than a child, or sixteen when we can drive, or eighteen when we think we’re adult. I remember that as summer waned during school breaks and I grew anxious for the change into fall, time seemed to creep. Now, of course, time is flying simply because there are fewer instances of newness to each day. Days run together because they are primarily the same when as a child each day let us learn something different. In my opinion, is the rejuvenation of the spirit through frequently learning something new that keeps some older people young at heart. Those are the people I truly enjoy because of the vibrancy they retain toward life.
The strangest thing I discovered when quitting smoking was the sudden influx of time, since I no longer stopped for a cigarette break or had to look for my lighter, or an ashtray, or needed to rapidly put out the embers I dropped on my clothes. Once I finally got over the feeling that I was forgetting something important, all those unconscious yet wasted moments became ‘found’ time, an opportunity to do something new or different. I experienced the same profound phenomenon today, this time with paying bills.
Like many other people, the change of the economy, the change of my working status, the changes in many financial regulations, and escalating prices on necessities like gasoline and food have forced me to carefully watch my pennies. One of those contributing changes was the last hike in the price of stamps. Yes, those stamps I choose always carried a very subtle message, like the Mickey Mouse stamps I always use when sending my check to the IRS or the mortgage company. I’ve even complained to the post office about wanting a stamp showing Yosemite Sam with his crossed bandoliers and both guns drawn, because that’s how I feel about credit card companies, energy companies, and the insurance industry – that they purposely try to rob us blind.
In an effort to save money and time, I signed up with my bank today to use e-pay for bills. I truly despise banks and bankers (along with many other leech-like industries that ignore humankind in favor of greed), so it took a long time for me to block my certainty that the bank would screw me over somehow. Pressed for time on a deadline to pay one of my creditors, I used that electronic service to pay one bill this morning. Then sat still wondering why it felt like the earth shifted. It had nothing to do with the money, but it had everything to do with time. It was such a damned fast transaction that it was scary! Not only did I save the cost of a stamp, but I saved the week it would take for the mailman to deliver the payment, the gasoline it would take to go to the post office, and the stress of worrying about being late and hit with an excessive charge because I was a sluggard or some kid in their mailroom spilled coffee on my payment and threw the wet mess in the trash.
I will definitely not succumb to automatic payments out of my account (I don’t like anyone messing with my money but me), but I will probably pay most if not all my bills in this fashion in the future instead of taking an entire morning to do it all by hand. And just think….I suddenly found all this extra time to be suspicious that the bank will screw it all up! Time can be such a worry!
Time and timing is critical to everything we do and every decision we make, whether our choice results in success beyond our imaginings or total disaster. We become pressed for time, we take time, we waste time, we kill time, we try to find time, we have a good time, we make up time, we don’t have enough time, we have time on our hands. None of us can escape time, nor can we ever make up for the time we have lost. Time is always tugging at us, it is always in the back of our minds or staring us in the face. Time is our ally, but time is also our enemy.
I’ve always envied those people whose internal time clocks automatically wake them, as though they purposely set an alarm in their heads. I envy those who can look at the sky or shadows on the sidewalk and accurately measure time. Sadly, I am among that block of people who easily lose track of time or whose sense of time has become warped by time’s passage. Too often I discover that things I think occurred last week or last month or last year actually occurred five years ago. As we age, time runs together, like dye colors in a madras jacket bleed into the fabric.
Someone once told me that finally reaching adulthood is the moment we realize that time moves at a more rapid pace. As youngsters time moves especially slow as we keep waiting to hit those traditional benchmarks of life, like turning thirteen when we’re finally a teenager rather than a child, or sixteen when we can drive, or eighteen when we think we’re adult. I remember that as summer waned during school breaks and I grew anxious for the change into fall, time seemed to creep. Now, of course, time is flying simply because there are fewer instances of newness to each day. Days run together because they are primarily the same when as a child each day let us learn something different. In my opinion, is the rejuvenation of the spirit through frequently learning something new that keeps some older people young at heart. Those are the people I truly enjoy because of the vibrancy they retain toward life.
The strangest thing I discovered when quitting smoking was the sudden influx of time, since I no longer stopped for a cigarette break or had to look for my lighter, or an ashtray, or needed to rapidly put out the embers I dropped on my clothes. Once I finally got over the feeling that I was forgetting something important, all those unconscious yet wasted moments became ‘found’ time, an opportunity to do something new or different. I experienced the same profound phenomenon today, this time with paying bills.
Like many other people, the change of the economy, the change of my working status, the changes in many financial regulations, and escalating prices on necessities like gasoline and food have forced me to carefully watch my pennies. One of those contributing changes was the last hike in the price of stamps. Yes, those stamps I choose always carried a very subtle message, like the Mickey Mouse stamps I always use when sending my check to the IRS or the mortgage company. I’ve even complained to the post office about wanting a stamp showing Yosemite Sam with his crossed bandoliers and both guns drawn, because that’s how I feel about credit card companies, energy companies, and the insurance industry – that they purposely try to rob us blind.
In an effort to save money and time, I signed up with my bank today to use e-pay for bills. I truly despise banks and bankers (along with many other leech-like industries that ignore humankind in favor of greed), so it took a long time for me to block my certainty that the bank would screw me over somehow. Pressed for time on a deadline to pay one of my creditors, I used that electronic service to pay one bill this morning. Then sat still wondering why it felt like the earth shifted. It had nothing to do with the money, but it had everything to do with time. It was such a damned fast transaction that it was scary! Not only did I save the cost of a stamp, but I saved the week it would take for the mailman to deliver the payment, the gasoline it would take to go to the post office, and the stress of worrying about being late and hit with an excessive charge because I was a sluggard or some kid in their mailroom spilled coffee on my payment and threw the wet mess in the trash.
I will definitely not succumb to automatic payments out of my account (I don’t like anyone messing with my money but me), but I will probably pay most if not all my bills in this fashion in the future instead of taking an entire morning to do it all by hand. And just think….I suddenly found all this extra time to be suspicious that the bank will screw it all up! Time can be such a worry!
posted by kaz at 11:52 AM
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