“Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.” – Harvey Mackay
Time Flies
These days I am preoccupied with time. I feel panicked that the days are passing quickly and I am aging. Aging feels like my own private battle.
My perspective on aging changed when I realized that aging applies to everyone. It is the human condition. We change slowly and subtly each day.
Changes become apparent when we meet someone we haven’t seen for a few years. Children transform into young adults. Older friends develop a receding hairline, more wrinkles, or a different body shape.
It’s often a surprise to see photos of celebrities. We remember them when they were famous. We look different when to see them now.
Time Equality
Time marches on for everyone simultaneously. No one gets more time in a day. We are all equal in this regard.
Although I sometimes envy wealthy and powerful people, I realize they still only have 24 hours in a day just like me. They too are aging due to the same human physiology.
Consider Vladimir Putin, or King Charles, or Donald Trump. They have immense power and influence in the world around them. Yet they have the same amount of time as everyone else. During their day they still need to sleep, wash, eat and relax. Their power has little benefit in these daily routines.
They are also bound by the rules that govern health and aging. Their health will suffer if they are physically inactive, eat and drink too much, or feel stressed, They too get old. They can’t stop the passage of time.
“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.” – C.S. Lewis
Capturing Time
Can time be stopped and saved? We try to capture time with a portrait or photograph. A portrait celebrates a person during one phase of life. Photographs directly capture a moment in time. In those images, time is frozen.
Unlike Oscar Wilde’s Portrait of Dorian Gray, where the painting ages while the person stays young, the truth is the opposite. Time moves on and so does the person. The portrait soon becomes a memory of the past.
https://www.deviantart.com/pti-spb/art/Dorian-Gray-388065987
Slowing Time Down
We can add a few hours to the day on occasion- when we set clocks back at the end of Daylight Saving time, or when we travel West to another time zone. It doesn’t stop the biological clock however.
Perhaps in some future society we will be able to travel close to the speed of light. For a relativistic traveller time slows. and aging also would slow down. Unfortunately, when the traveller returns home he/ she may be young but everyone else will have aged. Would that be any more satisfying?
Carpe Diem
Let’s give up trying to fool time. Let’s celebrate the time we have. Our time may be limited, but that makes each day more precious and beautiful. Savour each of them as they pass.
“This is a wonderful day. I have never seen this one before.” – Maya Angelou
“Enjoy life. There’s plenty of time to be dead.” – Hans Christian Anderson
