Time

I hate time, I hate clocks, I hate calendars. All they try to do is remind me of the time I've wasted and to point out to me that it's "now" now, it's no longer "once," and that really soon "now" will fade away to "yesterday" again, with non-stop speed and a cold disregard for my desire to hold on to "now" and not dwell on "once."

If you know what I mean... which you probably don't since I think I have a problem in this regard, with this obsession with time.

When digital clocks became all the rage in the mid-70s, I of course became fascinated with them. I had one on my nightstand that was popular at that time: each number was divided in half, and on the minute the top half of the minute place would drop with a little "click", displaying the new minute.

As I said, this both fascinated and horrified me at the same time. Here, clearly delineated with both visual and auditory cues, was the exact moment when the present became the past.

2:53 pm.

*click*

2:54 pm.

2:53 pm has now been relegated to the annals of the past, never To Be again. I couldn't go back to the more Innocent Time of 2:53 ever again. Whoops. Now it's not even 2:54 anymore, it's 2:55. See how quickly things recede into nothing but memories?

See the horror?

I took this to extremes one Sunday afternoon in 1976. The digital clock on our kitchen oven was the kind that didn't have half-numbers, but rather each number turned on a wheel. I looked at that clock that Sunday afternoon to see it was 1:09. I told myself to savor this, because this is it. The One And Only Time this "now" will be here. I watched with a slight dread as the time turned to display 1:10.

An hour later, at 2:09, I thought to myself, "So now that was an hour ago. It's in the past, and now it's no different that the Past that contains last month, or Pearl Harbor, or the American Revolution, or the birth of Christ. It's all "ago", it's all "then"... and to think that some day in the future *this* moment, when it was 1:09 on a Sunday afternoon, will also be years and decades ago. Huh. I don't like that."

And yes, those were almost exactly my thoughts word for word.

The next day I remarked how it was "a day ago that it was 1:09". The next day, "two days ago". Then a week later I thought that. A month later. A year later. Ten years later. Finally, after about the 10th anniversary, I slowly forgot about my poor, lost 1:09 pm on Sunday afternoon.

But occasionally, if I look at a digital clock and it's 1:09, I still remember.

And yes, I realize that this can't be normal.

Someone once told me,

You can spend your time searching for meaning, for railing against the
universe for being so cruel in making you insignificant, or you can just
take whatever time you have, be it forty years like Nate or 102 like
Claire and look on each day as the opportunity to grow into the person
you want to be.

This is truth, and I wish I could live my life this way. Sometimes I do. Too often, however, I let the unforgiving passage of time get to me. I pessimistically think that that we have not even a nanosecond of "now" before it becomes "once", when instead I should optimistically realize that we actually have an infinitely long "now." It's *always* "now". Don't worry about yesterday or tomorrow; take advantage of "now" and live.

Etc.