And This Image We Call Time

People spend a lot of time thinking about Time. I’ve just searched Amazon books for ‘time management’ and there are 17,283 entries. From ‘The 4-Hour Work Week’ (in your dreams) to ‘Getting Things Done’. The seductive titles are bespattered with noble nouns which are all attractive, and all relate to managing Time: Happiness, Discipline, Strength, Survival, Wellbeing, and the subtle Overcoming Dysfunction.

Some people never think about Time. In my experience, these people are usually surfers, or surfies, depending on your culture. You know, blonde, relaxed, erudite in a beat generation sort-of-way, just want to be out there, on a wave. But, hang on, there are tides (Time) and weather (Time) to consider, oh well, there goes my theory.

And there are people who philosophize about Time. What is it? When did it start? When will it end? Everyone’s got a theory, but no-one really knows. Although I reckon Plato came close. There it is, in my copy of Timaeus (part of the Britannica Great Books of the Western World, the entire set bought on Ebay for $35 last year, yes, I know you can download it all for free, but the books LOOK so good). He writes: “Wherefore he (here insert she, God, it, creator, or, if Buddhist, leave blank) resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call Time” Couldn’t have put it better myself, although Bob thinks zero is better than unity when he sings, “Where black is the color, where none is the number”. Which reminds me, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” is sort of topical again at this Time.

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