Time

In a time when nothing seems certain or left standing, one might be inclined to believe that it is time itself that represents the final immutable constant. A constant we can touch and hold onto. Expressible in clear numbers and thus subject to comparison. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years. All appear to be precisely defined. No matter where we are in the world. Since the very beginning, and forever.

One hour always has sixty minutes and that equates everywhere to three thousand six hundred seconds. One day always has twenty-four hours. And one week always has seven days. Though one month is not always one month, not always precisely the same amount of time. Sometimes it is thirty-one days – like in August. And at others it is only thirty – like in November. February has twenty-eight days and, every four years, even twenty-nine. In other words, even one year isn’t always one year. Every four years it is a little more. And that is also the essence of time. How we perceive it, then, may well differ, very significantly in some instances.

Seconds can seem like hours. As we await cathartic results, important news, our return to a beautiful location, or our great love.

Entire days may feel like a single fleeting moment. On journeys, when we spend time with people dear to us, when we finally have them all to ourselves again, or it comes to a long awaited reunion.
And always at the point when we pay too much attention to time, does it become precisely what it ought not to be. It becomes long and too much. Or short and too little. That is why we should leave time to its own devices. And not pay attention to it. Neither to the seconds and hours, nor the weeks and years.