© 2009 by Raymond Alexander Kukkee  

"Time cannot be stopped, for if it is so, the ultimate question must be, " if time is consumed, to be no more, what time remains to us?"  

Cast Your Time upon the Waters

Where does time reside? Often contemplated to grow ever more valuable as one grows older, is the only definitive description of time the innate, sometimes loud ticking of clocks watched endlessly? Shall we acquiesce to the ancient adage that the eventual and poignant recognition of the foolish waste of time may be the ultimate and only worthy gift of the old to themselves? What is the purpose of time?

 

A detailed examination of the concept of time may ultimately prove only to be an intimately personal and reflective pool of life experiences; an anecdotal reality that may be felt, observed, and lived with awe, wonder, and question. However described, the eternally unanswered questions about time remain flawlessly undefined, as they have for centuries.

Perhaps a project deemed suitable only for the aged, the examination of, or any attempt to define time may include a simple, fleeting reflection in a mirror, much as seeing one's image while polishing an ancient, brass key. Meant only to unlock old doors long forgotten, the shining key may offer some inexplicable satisfaction to the soul, but only enough to remind one of dreams forever locked in the mind. The passion to clarify the past both in definition and understanding may persist, but attempts to examine or try to change events in time have proven to be futile, an impossibility, and any method of doing so remains a secret carefully ingrained within the structure and meaning of time itself. The improbability of redefining time perfectly does not preclude wishful thinking from the human psyche, merely the spending of yet more time to attempt the perplexities of the difficult and dream of achieving the heretofore impossible.

Perhaps it may be more immediately pleasing to question whether time observed in the present might be time borrowed from the past. Time hailed from ancient fogs, --even the same hours, minutes and seconds, time recalled repeatedly from many years ago, where seconds were fleeting, but minutes were generously processed by great wall clocks in town squares and one-roomed schoolhouses, --and hours, in the eyes of the young, took forever to pass.

Both time and great clocks may now be found in old museums that themselves, serve only to preserve dusty relics of time. If carefully wound up the minute hands of such clocks may still move suddenly, minute by minute, the chained brass weights again consuming gravity and singular moments from the past; yet if in operation, they elegantly devour time today, but seemingly more slowly, archaically and determinedly, a fact that may be observed only in the perception of wary curators and curious tourists.

Did the great clocks of the past process time faster in the village square, -or on the wall of the schoolhouse simply because twenty pairs of young, eager eyes wished it to be so, waiting impatiently for recess? Was the ancient minute processed in the schoolhouse really longer, borrowed from the universe, or perhaps measured by the shadows of ancient pyramids of Egypt and adjusted carefully at Stonehenge? Ever closer to contemporary reality, is the same minute, now borrowed from the schoolhouse and remembered forever in the museum, being rapidly and eagerly consumed, processed by computer and ultimately, the cesium-driven atomic clock?  Perhaps humanity has fitfully and erroneously sent time digitally-divided back out into the universe by satellite.

Is that by reason of advancement, evolution, preservation, or simply a recycling, a natural, patterned progression evident throughout the universe?

Time cannot be stopped, for if it is so, the ultimate question must be, " if time is consumed, to be no more, what time remains to us?" Perhaps the cry of a newborn child is humanity's expression of distress at how little precious time we are each allotted. Collectively, if the value of time is so predestined, why does humanity so easily forget how valuable that allotment of time is? Clearly, each second wasted passes through the fingers of the idle, as surely as glittering, beautiful dewdrops falling from a single blade of grass must evaporate. Is the intrinsic value of time then neglected for the greater part of our lives, only to be recognized and mourned too late by the old ?  Is time lost in it's own reflection?

Wisdom suggests that the less time we have allotted to us, the greater the value  each moment must be. To not awaken to the importance of the processing of time and to the calling generously allowed us must prove to be an inherent genetic failure of human nature itself . After thousands of years, we have not identified the true nature of time.

Time passes all. Time defeats all. Time cannot make one think; time cannot make one act generously, kindly, or charitably. Time cannot make the foolish wise, or the coward brave. Time can only allow a portion of itself, a processed moment from the past, to be again offered with eternal hope that our minds shall be opened to receive it, revel in the complicity of time itself, and use it judiciously for the benefit of all that follow in our footsteps as we follow the paths of those gone before us.

Wisdom suggests that instead, we should give time away.

" Cast your time upon the waters of life, and it shall be returned to you tenfold. "  A curious thought.

The gift of time may be the most wonderful thing that can be given to anyone. If our dreams are but to live in time, those precious, allotted minutes borrowed and processed from the past must not be hoarded by silent, chained clocks in dusty museums or by narrow, closed minds, but be eternally celebrated and given generously in faith and in trust to newborn generations as love, peace, and purity.

It is often said we are living upon borrowed time.It must be repaid.

 I must now therefore reconsider time, for within faith placed carefully, time itself may truly be the essence of our being . Tears fall as I poignantly count how few precious minutes and hours I have remaining to give back to our children, for it is ever more apparent now that I, ---as the rest of humanity, will ultimately be forced to admit that I have not always used time wisely.

Indeed, in the mind, the clock is ticking. Is that where time resides?

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Is that Incoming I hear?

  © photo credits courtesy of wlk photography Tags: #time, #where does time reside, #the gift of time, #reflections +