Skip to main content

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..




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fear

It challenges us all. We all face up to it. We all tackle it. We all shy away from it. More important than that is how we face up to ourselves. Being honest with yourself is not as easy as it sounds, and it is often the cause of significant angst and negativity. It is always easier to blame someone else...rather than be honest about what we have committed ourselves to doing. Trouble is, it is a slippery slope!So, maybe the answer is to yield - to accept ourselves for who we are, and act accordingly. We make mistakes, we make the wrong decisions - the important thing is to be totally honest with ourselves and others and accept that sometimes, we have to admit that we have taken a wrong turn or made the wrong decision. Hiding from that is not good, it cuts across our ability to love ourselves for who we are.
Post a Comment
Read more

The simple things

It is Easter and I am sitting in the Old Post Office B & B in Paparoa, a village of a few thousand (max) people in the heart of the Kaipara District of New Zealand. It is quiet, there is a full moon, and Amelie my 3 year old princess has just run into the sitting room and said N Niiiight, kissed me on the cheek, given me a hug and bounced off to her bedroom for a story ... She gets distracted by the pieces on a chess board as she goes, 'this one here, that one there' .... Ammeeeliiee, her mum calls - oh oh she says and toddles off to hear the story. There is a clock ticking close by, the lighting in the sitting room is soft, it is peaceful. How lucky to be here - how lucky to have the simple things in life laid out before me, no hassle, no complexity, no need to think, no need to relax, I can just be. We do make our lives complicated sometimes don't we - more often than not because we desire or want something, or someone to do what we want them to do, or maybe thi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Call me a cynic, but are we all being fooled?

As the 21st century continues on it’s merry way, life and how we live it continues to change. The rich are now obscenely so, and we ask ourselves ‘who really needs to be a billionaire’? The corporate juggernaut Goliath barrels its way along the highway, smashing any who look anything like David with his slingshot, worried of the impact on their mission for global domination. The average wage for the average Joe Worker doing a 40 hour week, (packing more in now than ever before thanks to the wonders of the internet) is not a lot. We travel faster, we receive information and send information.. faster, we do more in less time. Is the average Joe Worker better off for living the dream and buying their first car, or saving for their first house with all the furniture and trimmings…(noting the fact that it is likely that a significant proportion of their deposit will come from their parents, who now provide some 40% of the lending to newbie owners).. The issue isn’t just confined to families...
Post a Comment
Read more