If you look around you see death, destruction, pain, and injustice. The Ukrainians and Russians are killing each other and the Israelis are determined to eradicate every Palestinian on the face of the earth. Is it therefore true that the more things change, the more they stay the same?
Is time irrelevant. If time changes, human nature is constant.
Despite the advancements in technology, the basic needs and problems of life and death remain. Politics and politicians change; the fundamental power simply shifts from one to another. The issues are unvarying.
What is going on in Washington DC, the ultimate seat of power is beyond comprehension. Imagine a huge playground with many games to play, take your pick — Hide and seek? Musical chairs? Charades? Card games? Cops and robbers? Cowboys and Indians? Tick Tack Toe? They all play and no one knows what the other is playing. We see no change, no progress — not since yesterday, not since all our yesterdays.
Stark, ugly, and horrific reality endures.
The fall of man and the loss of Eden demonstrate humanity in all centuries, all races, and all creeds. Who kill the innocent on their way to prayer? Who kill the hungry as they seek a loaf of bread? Who kills a child as it sips some water? They are called humans approved by other humans.
Is there anyone in this vast world to wipe a tear as the flames devour fellow humans? And if they do, what then?
Time after time we kill, habitually, unfailingly, everlastingly.
If time is of the essence, it is to hurry and do what we routinely do. We are hardwired to kill as evidenced in our DNA. We have inherited the propensity for violence from our ancestors. Even in the face of time, human instincts persist. Time simply chases time to copy, to repeat the same pattern that is familiar.
What is the nature of time? Is it precious? Is it useless? Is it stagnant?
Scientists and philosophers, immersed in thought for centuries, seek answers for their valuable time. There are myriad explanations, descriptions, calculations — in essence, they are all concepts, perspectives, and measurements of time. In order to tame the passage of time they invented the clock, the calendar, spent countless hours trying to figure out the concept of time. Yet we can neither see it, hear it or touch it. We are only aware of its existence.
It is said that time is an illusion born of our incomplete knowledge that exists objectively. All we really know is when the big hand moves, we see time. Therefore, time cannot be just an illusion. Look at your clock — the seconds, the minutes, the hours race and the world races with them.
Humans have been occupied with their invisible entity for 2,600 years. No one has come up with a perfectly solid explanation or deduction — only theories.
Finding an answer falls right on the lap of physics and physicists, but even they struggle. Aristotle defines “Time is the calculable measure of motion with respect to before and afterness.” Pretty good, we say. His idea of time as a fixed sequel of events survived through the centuries with only minor modifications, until Einstein came along 20 centuries later with his Theory of Relativity. Einstein’s theory suggests that there is no single “universal time”. Time does not progress at the same rate for everyone, everywhere. Although our clocks may run fast or slow, there is some “master clock” for the universe to which, in an ideal world, all clocks could be synchronised. Time is not absolute, but relative. Since then, most physicists accept Einstein’s idea of universal time, without question, but there are questions.
This constant and continued existence is estimated to be 14 billion years old, according to the Big Bang Theory, originally proposed by Georges Lemaitre and others. Then came Stephen Hawking, (1942-2018), who proposed time itself began at the Big Bang and in his book On the Origin of Time, that the universe and time itself had a beginning and that the universe will eventually collapse. “We will keep on getting older and we won’t return to our youth.” Time is not going to go backwards.
Do we have a definite, concrete, and tangible definition of what time is? So far, time is just is.
Physicists define time as a progression, an irreversible succession of events from the past to the present into the future. What is eerie is that basically time is an unchanging system — it is timeless.
Their endless calculations are endless. We know that time cannot move backward, yet time repeats itself through centuries. It has no eyes to see the horrors of mankind. We may not travel to the past, but we well know how to follow in their footsteps.
Granted that time is as elusive as it is illusory, why are we so pre-occupied with it. Not much changes time, or the behaviour of mankind.
Were it one tapestry confined in space, including past, present and future, would it not have learned all its lessons?
Time is therefore useless, it flies too rapidly, moving forward, never backward.
“Time stands still and I with it.”
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
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