Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut introduces the notion of our hero being unstuck in time. He shifts forward and backward in an unending stream of time as if linear time is not a constraint. Lately I have felt unstuck in time. One moment I am in a future that is a foreign realm to me. One possibility in a vast spectrum. The next I am a child in my father’s arms as he picks me up from a fall I had on the swingset. And now I am back here. Writing this piece about time.
Who came up with tracking time? I mean, all cultures keep track of it through the motions of sun and moon. The changing seasons. Night and day. But why the quest to measure each second, each nanosecond, with perfect precision? Take the case of the atomic clock.
Sometimes I get so caught up in not wanting to waste time that I become frozen. Unable to move. Too much attention to an unimportant detail. Who cares if I waste time? Get over it already...