I remember the time I wore my first wristwatch. It was a simple analog watch, tied to my wrist with a leather strap, with hands for hour, minute and second. At that time it was one of my precious possessions. Whenever I was alone, I used to look at the second-hand for minutes on end, marveling at its beauty. What’s more, there was a very tiny airplane attached to the second-hand which kept circling at the periphery endlessly. It nearly had me mesmerized whenever I looked at it long enough. Sometimes I used to take it close to my ear and hear it ‘tick, tick, tick’. It was one of those moments in my life when time stood still.
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I didn’t know at that time, the meaning of the term ‘clockwork precision’ or the mechanism behind it that made it possible. But as the years went by, I slowly got to realize that I was inexorably moving in time and was controlled by it. That my hours are limited on this earth and that I should achieve or experience good things in my life as fast as I can. It was much like a cow grazing in a hurry, fearing imminent attack from a predator. My negative feelings towards time was reinforced by an editorial in Time magazine (published way back in 1981-82) about how time has become a monster and that we have all become its slaves. Though much later in life I heard someone coining the phrase, “Time is our enemy”, I experienced that feeling often times before that.
From the routine questions like
‘When do you think the project (or machine) will be ready? from my boss,
to
‘I want it in a day’s time. Can you do it?’ from my customer
to something special like
‘Dear, we have an appointment with the doctor by 3:00 PM tomorrow’ from my wife that kept me on the edge all the time.
Not knowing a way out, I was playing along. I met my schedules sometimes on time, but mostly behind. It was more like the exam invigilator, tapping on his wristwatch and pulling the sheaf of answer papers from me saying, “Your time is up buddy”
In my search for the conquest of time, I asked myself the following questions:
- Who or what brought up the concept of time?
- When was first time noticed?
- Where time was first officially recorded?
- Why is or is not time important?
- How to perceive time?
It appears to me, of the many above, only the last, “How to perceive time?” has some chance of finding an answer to my problems.
While Albert Einstein’s finding that ‘time is not the same for everyone’ offered me some hope; but I was weak in Physics and not yet ready to travel at the speed of light. Wayne Dyer’s principle that “Time does not exist” offered me some consolation but I couldn’t take it to my boss or customer. Eckhart Tolle’s advice that “Time is not precious. What you perceive to be precious is not time but that one point outside of time which is ‘Now’. That is precious indeed.” nails the concept of time on its head. But still.
Nowadays I am so preoccupied that I don’t look at my watch unless I really need to know the time or when someone around asks me, “Excuse me, do you I have the time?”
Although I tell the time I couldn’t help thinking, “What good would it do them?”
