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Time as human invention


I am sitting at my desk with an hourglass beside me. The sand through the neck for 30 minutes when set. The history of timekeeping dates back to ancient civilisations watching the stars and planets to make decisions on when to sow and reap, when to hunt and gather. In mathematical terms, time can be defined as the ongoing and continuous sequence of events that occur in succession from the past to the present to the future, measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. 

Our lives are driven by time. We work to get things done on time - what people are paid to work is based on time and the 40 hour working week. We sleep and wake according to the time of day or night. We allocate time for work and play. We share our time with others. We manage our interactions with others based on time. Some say that all we are born with is time.

But, isn’t time a human construct? Is there any ‘time’? There are seasons, there are cycles driven by our location in the universe. Our lives are transient - we are born, we live a life and then we pass away as life goes on. 

Is time a thing? Or is it an invention created by man to manage work and provide impetus to manage our activity? When you are on holiday and unwinding, time becomes far less relevant. We are still active but we care much less about the time of day or night. 

According to theoretical physicist, Carlo Rovelli, time is an illusion: our naive perception of it’s flow doesn’t correspond to physical reality… he posits that reality is a complex network of events into which we project sequences of past, present and future. Einstein stated ‘people like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. 

As we age, the relativity of time takes on a new look. A day seems far shorter than as a child. I go to bed, fall asleep and almost in an instant I am awake and climbing into the new day. 

Does time really matter? 

Is it time for new thinking to take humanity beyond this stubborn illusion. Is it time for society to re-think how we live and how we support one another with activity and outcomes as a focus rather than time.. 

The sands of time keep flowing after all..




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