Time

  A new year. Man has always sought to mark the passage of time. The rising and setting of the sun, the phases of the moon, the rise and fall of the oceans, all used as devices to measure that. But why? Why the fascination with time? We know not the hour of our passing. That fact was pointed out by Mathew in the Bible, his advice, was to always be ready for that eventuality. So it isn't a countdown, you have to know the number in order to do that. So that leaves it as an accounting. We are adding up the days. Each day a victory, a victory over death. 

 Today I am on number 24,637, give or take a few hours. That's a large number and also one I take for granted. Tomorrow will be 24,638 and I have every expectation to be there. I have given an occasional thought to what the final tally will be, I think we all do that. Is that just a number? My thinking is it will be to us, no big deal, just another day. It will be a day of change that much is certain. I wonder about that. My biggest question is, will I know it? That is to say, will I be conscious of that event? And in so being say, well I was going to mow the grass today, but now I don't have to, I'm dead. Being dead gets you out of a lot of stuff. After you are dead will you be comfortable understanding that most of what we do here is trivial? Most of the time we are just marking days off the calendar. Things is, there isn't much we can do about that either. We like to think about making a difference, about being an integral part of the world, but we are not. One day we will be gone, the best we can hope for is to be remembered. And even that is limited. It's all just a matter of time.

 Now that sounds rather grim doesn't it? Sure it does and that's because we are here. Seems rather pointless when you look at it like that. People come and go. Some remembered and most forgotten over time. Ancient man is just a curiosity to us today. We dig up the bones and shards of pottery, we speculate and reconstruct. What we can't do is understand his thoughts. That is why writing was invented, to record the thoughts of man. It is an attempt to communicate beyond death. I was here and this is what I thought. I have recorded time. This is what was, to write about what will be is called speculative. Sometimes, especially in the old days we called it, prophecy. Prophets abounded in the old days. Were are they today? Oh they are here but mostly labeled charlatans. That's another old name, today we call them scammers. A good number of them are Politicians. That's my thinking anyway. No reason I shouldn't, history has shown that to be true, even in ancient times. The titles were different, the office the same. Their motives were the same, power and profit. 

 I think all we can do is mark the time. That is what we have done from the beginning. I can talk about using what time I have to the best advantage, to the benefit of others, and that is the noble path to take. Still I should stop along the way, to smell the roses as they say. I'm entitled to happiness. The founding fathers recorded that as their thought as well. The how and why of our time is a mystery to us and will remain so as long as we are here, marking the time. It is my belief that in death there will be answers. The issue I have with that is that answers always lead to more questions. We question the answers. Such is the nature of man. Does time end when we have all the answers? Or does time begin when we start asking questions? 

 Now don't take any of this to have any great and profound meaning. It is just a few random thoughts I have had regarding time. It is true that time seems to pass much quicker the longer you have been counting. I notice months more than weeks these days. When I was younger a week was a long time. I wonder why that should be. Is it that we were paying closer attention in our youth? Do we become less interested over time? That could be. I recall being in the second grade. On the first day of class we were instructed to look at the numbers circling the classroom. On the wall, close to the ceiling were the numbers 1 through 1000.  I was told before the end of the school year I would have to be able to count that high in order to move to the next grade. Now a thousand seemed like an insurmountable number. I did manage to accomplish that feat, and found I could just keep going from there. In fact, it became a bit boring. I don't remember what number I stopped counting at. 24,637 days is 67 years and I lose track of that. Time waits for no man, is an ancient idiom. All we can do is keep on counting, will we ever catch up? That's the real question, the mystery of the universe. Even Einstein couldn't explain that, all he had was a theory. I've got one of those too. Time cannot be measured because it is infinite, like space. Time is beyond the comprehension of man. It is the beginning and the end.