Time and your time

A brother of a friend is an expert on time, a philosopher of time, a person who studies time and how it relates to life as we know it. We seem to be the only species that cares about time, logs time, in the way that we do, labeling it minute by minute, hour by hour, and year by year. Most species look at time in the immediate (Is it time to eat? to sleep? to play?) or the seasonal (Is it time to hibernate? to store food? to have babies?); we make everything so much more complicated. Is time linear or cyclical or something else entirely?

Then there's the way time plays out according to our desires, so that something we enjoy moves time faster, and something that pains us moves time more slowly, sometimes agonizingly so. Time can feel like air, gone in a puff of breath, or like liquid, pooling in the base of our minds, or even solid, immoveable, in grief or depression.

Then there are the concepts of having time, setting aside time, making time, and finding time, as if we actually had some control over time. The best time song I've heard lately is Anna Nalick's "Breathe (2 am)," in which she croons, "Life's like an hourglass glued to the table/ No one can find the rewind button, girl."  Of course Mick Jagger bragged, "Yes time, time, time is on my side," which does in fact appear to be the case, but he's Mick Jagger. Or maybe the devil.

Or how about the saying "Live every moment as if it's your last," because, of course, maybe it is, whether you are standing in the middle of the highway or hiding under your kitchen table? If it's your time, it's your time. It's strange how that expression can be the beginning, a birth, say, or the end, your death, untimely or not. "What time is it, Mister Fox?" What time indeed. What's on your list to do before it's your time? Emily Dickinson said, "Life is composed of nows." What now?

Time on the Mind http://www.blogging4jobs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/saving-time-life.jpg