Time...???????????????

[SoulAngel]

The irony here is that it is said that time flies when we're having fun. But in youth almost everyone is having fun, yet time just creeps along. Perhaps it is because, despite all the fun we may have, we are preoccupied deep down with an exciting urge to find out what it's like to be all grown up. Then we learn that we, like time itself, can actively create change.

Anytime we have something highly desirable to look forward to, time does seem to drag. In youth we look forward to the pending opportunity to be regarded by others as more significant. We will become taller, wiser, smarter, more attractive, and we anticipate that those things will bring us respect and admiration.

Waiting for respect and admiration to come from those we look up to is like trying watch a river bank erode. Time is like water in some ways, metaphorically. It trickles when it's a little drop on the windshield. This is like the tiny time for tiny tots. When poured out onto a flat ground, it still doesn't really flow; it just spreads out far and wide, like the adventures in youth that never seem to end. Finally, it gushes downhill, followed by its own weight, which seems to propel it faster toward the unifying ocean in adulthood. Its weight consists of the kind of experience, failures, and burdens that childhood doesn't know. A drop of rain accomplishes little in the world, but an entire ocean accomplishes much. It is by these accomplishments that we regard time. This is how flows the winding river of life; from rain, to puddle, to river, to ocean.

I watch my friends three year old is putting her shoes on to go out and get her father a chicken sandwich, at her father's jesting request. At her age, she doesn't realize that there are some things she just can't do right now. She thinks she is going to drive herself to McDonalds. She has no barriers, in her own mind. She is too young to know that she actually will grow up. At her stage in life, she is like the trickle of rain on the windshield. She and his mind are a droplet in a sea of everything that is larger than him. It's almost as if he is a drop of time itself. The more there is of her and the power of her own will, the faster time will seem to move for her Once she has come to see that things do change, time will seem to move a little faster for her. Once she comes to see that she can change things herself, time will seem to move yet more swiftly. Once she has actually completed a few larger goals, time will seem to zip by. The stronger the will becomes, the faster time seems to move. She is gradually transiting from being on the edge of time's bank to having time within her in the form of sheer will as she joins forces with time by following the tradition of humankind; to have an effect on her environment that compares with that of time's. I'm not talking about the will of a tiny tot to get her way, but the kind of will that develops in puberty. It begins with the will to grow up and join the larger efforts in the world. Even as a young teen I found time was moving faster. I was developing the will to change myself and my world.

It is with that will that we collectively change the planet. The face of the earth changes with the weathering allowed by time as causative force, and the one vessel that accelerates that force is the human race, distinguished from all other creatures by our knowledge. It's the will behind that knowlege that is the key with which we move time. What other creature on this earth besides the human can have an effect on the planet comparable to that of time's? It's as if the aging human behaves increasingly as "co-time". Things change over the course of time as well as under the direction of the human will. We often see these two forces as intertwined. In our perception they feed on each other. When we act on the will, we get time moving. When we see that time is moving, we act on the will with greater intensity. The more intense the will, the faster time seems to move. The will I refer to could be applied to anything; outward or inward achievements, or even just maintaining those achievements.

Beyond the metaphors and the perceptive angles with which we see life as we develop, there are practical habits that we develop as adults that eat time. Routines, we must remember, are intentionally designed to burn time; time is like money to us, so we budget time just like it's money. We intentionally give 10 minutes here and 2 hours there, until the day is all burnt up. Then, we sacrifice sleep to try and get more time. That's no mystery.

As I write this, it is becoming autumn, and the days are seeming shorter to me. Funny, how it is the summer that seems shortest to a child. What accounts for that, however, is that time seems to fly when you're having fun, and sleeping till ten.


Interesting *s

[The Reverend Dark Angel]

That's all deep and shit. Did you get knocked up or something?