Time

I started reading Einstein's Dreams, a novel by Alan Lightman, and had the urge to write a short essay on the subject. The book tells of instances where Time is affected in different ways and how the people of a certain town react to these new laws. What I have written is not necessarily about the book; merely an essay about Time itself and some of my random thoughts about it. I hope you enjoy reading it and that it provokes you yourself to think. Think about how you ultimately wish to spend the Time you are given.

Time

By Kelly Coquerel

It is an interesting concept in which we are bound. In this day, we can leave a country, explore the ocean, change our circumstances, choose an identity, overcome an addiction, and even travel outside our own planet. We are rarely prisoners except by choice. But no one can escape Time. We are all bound by it. We are subject to its law. It cannot be overpowered or controlled, and it moves by its own will.

It is not only humans who are under its will; it is beasts and plants and the inanimate. They age and grow and die and wear. Chaos is the goal of Time; its one motive. It leads everything to this end. The Elements cannot exist without Time, for in order for them to affect anything, they must have a path and a sequence from which to continue. And it is not just Earth that is at Time’s beck and call. All the planets and all the universe and all within our realm of possibility and existence cannot, in fact, exist except by Time.

Knowing the nature of Time, at least our minuscule understanding of it, how should we react? Knowing that its goal is for us to wear out and extinguish, do we bother with our own goals that will not really matter in the end or do we cherish dearly what Time does give us? Do we make haste in all that we do in order to make the most of that brief gift, or do we linger in every moment and enjoy it to its fullest because we know it will not last long? Do we hold on to what has been done, to what Time has already taken? Will we seek vengeance over these things? Will we learn from them? Or will we look to what Time has not yet offered and spend the present in anticipation of what is to come, constantly preparing, dreaming, wondering? Or will we acknowledge the present in its simplicity of its brevity? Do we grab hold of that gift of Time and cherish it and live it to the best of our abilities, appreciating our great fortune in having that very individual moment?

Will we ever be freed from this master? Not until it decides to free us. Then where are we? We are not in existence; or at least an existence which our minds can fathom; not an existence which our fleeting experiences could be of any use. How, then, can we overcome it? We cannot. But we can embrace it. We can accept it. And we can make the best of it.