Time … Is Magic

“Time”. What’s it all about? Who defines it? Who decides that it exists?

I’m sure there’s scientists out there who can give an explanation for the existence of, and the meaning of time, but really why is it here? Other than to give us meaning to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun and to explain the concept of “Day” and “Night” – Thought up by mankind to help us understand the orbital processes in a non-scientific way.

What I know about time is that it is both fleeting and arduously long depending on how you spend it. I’m saying “spend” like it’s a tangible thing, like you can somehow control time; like it’s manageable and something which you can pocket.

Time can be long and seem like the day is passing by so slowly when one is bored; it seems like you have “all the time in the world” – A rather meaningless concept judging by the fact that we cannot physically control time, although many people think they can.

On the other hand, time can pass by so quickly when one is having fun, that people are often heard saying “I wish I had more time” or “there’s not enough hours in the day”. This concept would mean that they would like to, once again, control time, or have less to do.

The reality is that time, like most things, is a mystery and we are little prepared to understand it fully. I’m no scientist, and nor do I purport to be, but time is something even I would like to be able to manage more frequently. I feel like the best quote to describe time would be one from British Television Sci-Fi show, Doctor Who:

“People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, when actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.”

In essence, I believe that time is a big ball of stuff. Maybe atoms, neutrons, protons, electrons, gases, whatever – I don’t know what makes up time; what merges to create this thing called “time”.

They say time is money and my understanding of this may be completely wrong, but you work set hours on the clock – set “times” and you get paid, right? Paid to work time; but if no one can ever define time, then how can one get paid for the hours they’ve worked, when the concept of time is just a theory; albeit one unanimously decided, but a theory nonetheless?

I may totally be on the wrong path here, but seeing as an opinion can neither be right, nor wrong (just someone’s idea) “Time”, or in its Latin form “Tempus”, in my opinion completely perplexes me when trying to understand it, ergo all I can say is: Time … is Magic.

[Originally posted to Hour of Writes]