Saturday, July 12, 2008

On Time Travel:

So there I was strapped in to my desk chair, radiation visor down, cursing the internet. Deep Space. The Time Continuum.

I was looking at hour glasses, clocks and calendars. I guess time was on my mind. And then I stumbled on a phenomenon. This was not new to me because I had heard whisperings about it before. A long time ago before first marriages and kids, moving and starting over, family deaths and cancer.

The end of the world as we know it. (R.E.M. song dancing in my head.) I know you laugh. So did I at first. But there it is only a Google away. 122112 ! December 12, 2021. The Mayan calendar ends that day. The ancient china calendar does too. And apparently the earth will pass through the threshold of the milky way or some such thing then to emerge on the other side also turning the magnetic poles on end and messing with how things work. (Okay, I got a little over the top there.) Deep breath.

I do a body check. Yup, all there. Now what do I do with this information? Do I take it as truth and start my count down? Do I keep laughing and move along with my life? Do I try to get things right with my maker? Four years, five months, 9 days, tee hee, right All Mighty One?

But where did the time go since I was kid and first heard about this and had my whole life ahead of me. Days, weeks, months, years, decades to spend as I saw fit. I had forgotten to pay attention to the time in my hands instead of the time on the clock.

I filled it. I know I did. There were meals and cleaning, crafts and work, music and movies and vacations to take. I wrote stories. I played video games, lots of video games. I put jigsaw puzzles together. In fact I put enough jigsaw puzzles together to know that I’m a 775 piece a day puzzler. And I can still have food ready on time and the dishes washed too.

Time the only thing we cherish and it is still invisible, you can’t touch it, and you can’t buy, make or own it. Much as we try to.

How much time do we have? I’m sure I don’t know. But It makes me think. How will I choose to spend the rest of the time I have? However long that is

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