subject: The Feral Nature Of Time [print this page] It is difficult to weigh the value of timeIt is difficult to weigh the value of time. Time will not be measured on scales. A digital scale isn't sensitive enough to quantify the preciousness of time. Years, days, weeks and minutes all pass without any measure of its value. How can the future be calculated? How can the value be measured? There are formulas to measure appreciation, depreciation, life expectancy and tables to determine how much insurance is required based on some obscure calculation of age and time. But, as everyone knows time is relative, its weight and value ever changing.
Most people give the past a way too much weight and value. An individual's identitiy is often built by history and the perception of the past. Therapists confront the weight of the past everyday when working with adults that have had traumatic childhoods. A man settles for a factory job pushing metal down a ramp because he heard a million times how he was good for nothing. Those words are now is his own inner voice. An adult coming from poverty may spend his life trying to make enough money to feel secure, but no amount will ever be enough. A child abused may become an adult afraid, or worse an abuser as well. The weight of the past can pull someone down and squeeze the experience of living right out of them.
The future is made up of a similar type of weight, a weight of potential. Many people go through their days saving and planning so that someday they can take that trip, buy that house, have those babies, or retire to a better life. Many life choices are a calculated hedge against potential threats. Too many people put their happiness on hold believing they are going to get to it later. Lives go by in an attempt to build security and prevent unknown and imagined calamities.
The burden of the past, the focus on the future squashes the experience of the present into a small pellet, like something a mouse might leave by the molding in the kitchen. The past is over and the future an abstract concept. The only time that is experienced is the one that in now. The only thing that is real exists in the space that is right now. It doesn't mean that the past is hurled out the window and the future ignored. The past teaches us and helps us live fully in the moment that is happening now. The scar on the hand from touching the hot stove reminds us that stoves can be hot. The dream of owning a ranch outside Cripple Creek might determine the path we take in life. But decisions happen now, the experience of being alive can only happen now. The outcome of those decisions may lead to a completely different experience never imagined. Time can only really be measured in in the present.
The value of time is determined not by months and years but by awareness and presence.
