Sunday, September 18, 2011

TIME

I remember an old T.V. show about a girl who was half alien and she had the power to stop time by touching her two index fingers together. A ding sound would chime and everything would be frozen. Then, whoever she touched would come out of the trance but time would still be frozen. What a cool power!!! I wish I had that power. It seems I'm always watching the clock. First I have to be here, then there. It's like a race. I even put aside some down time but it often gets overrun by time you didn't plan for esp. when cars break down and kids get sick and the down time turns into take the car to the shop time and the kid to the doctor time etc. etc. Then one day, the race just ends.


I guess it was the same before we ever had clocks. The sun told the time. Before there was ever electricity, we raced against light. But when that sun went down, we had to stop what we were doing. That is, until we invented fire. Forget about electricity, fire was the big light bringer. I bet ancient man felt so full of himself back then. "I made fire. I beat time. Mwahahhaahahah!" Such fools we are.


Someone told me that time is an illusion but if it is, then everything is an illusion. As long as I live in this reality, time is as real as the night and day. I used to think I had power over it, the way the first inventor of fire did. In my youth, I stayed up all night, worked all odd hours, attended school, partied and kept going and going, wearing our my adrenal glands with the idea that sleep is only for the dead. But nature has a way of slapping you in the face when you don’t listen. I started hallucinating; dreaming while awake and I realized that I wasn’t an exception to the rest of the human race. Then, when I graduated, I slept. I slept for a good week. I went to work and realized that I remembered things better and was sharper than ever. To this day, I have no idea how I functioned on no sleep or what it looked like to others.
We have invented machines that get us places faster and ways of growing food more efficiently. We have formed farms and cities to control nature. As an unintended consequence, we also invented smog, global warming and oil spills. We thought we knew something. We thought we beat nature but nature has a way of slapping us in the face.


Why are humans so hell bent in controlling nature? Is it because we were made after the image of God and we have the urge to create in our DNA? Yet, somehow, every choice we take to conquer time and the elements backfires. So I’ve accepted my fate and have stopped wasting my energy trying to conquer realities such as time. I think that when we are born, we are only given a certain amount of time. It’s in our DNA. We live, fighting it, afraid of the change that will come when it’s all over. It only reminds me how precious time is and I could spend all my time trying to fight it or I can spend my time enjoying every second of this finite life.

6 comments:

  1. You're actually discussing things and speaking your mind - what a revolutionary idea! I guess I'll be following you.
    No one believes he or she will die. Then the first big health scare comes, and the fear follows behind. But if we knew death was present from the time we were children, we'd be suicidal. Maybe that's what causes suicide and depression: programming that counter-acts evolution, and endangers us. If we believed death could come any moment, we wouldn't have kids, or make friends, or get married, or keep up the house and garden. Not believing in death - the thing that happens to everybody - is the natural state of all animals.
    Keep up the funk! I'll browse through your older posts.
    -Mac Campbell
    -http://iwritehorror.blogspot.com

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  2. Hi Mac,
    Thanks for stopping by. Why wouldn't I speak my mind--lol! I don't know. I think being aware of my mortality makes me a better mother and lover. I live every moment to my fullest knowing it could be the last and it keeps me from procrastinating.
    I think I'm more obsessed with mortality than immortality. Vampire novelists love to explore immortality yet their vampires seem to live alone and depressing lives and never have kids or families. You'd think that being immortal would make them not fear settling down. My made up monster is all too aware of her mortality, or she thinks she is. She compares herself to the fireflies that flash in the summertime but are gone by the fall. She wants to die and is obsessed with mortality. So, I guess that would support what you say above.
    If you like subjects on death, check out my post on Death:
    http://laceyreah.blogspot.com/2011/03/death.html
    Horror writers are most welcome here... ;)

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  3. Lacey,
    Ahh, the circles. Saw your comment at Mac's site about the Twilight Zone and was going to comment to you on facebook, but saw that you a new post up, so came here.

    I like the post. I feel like I'm constantly fighting time, even as I'm constantly trying to remind myself to enjoy "the now." It's tricky. And I think I'm losing the battle. But thanks for the reminder to enjoy each moment rather than try to fill it with something.

    Okay, the Twilight Zone. HUGE fan. I actually teach "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" to my 9th graders, along with a discussion of the Red Scare. And on the last day of my honeymoon in Hawaii, with the combination of seeing the sites for almost a week and some rainy weather that day, it didn't take much convincing for us to stay in the condo all day and watch a Twilight Zone marathon.

    Paul D. Dail
    www.pauldail.com- A horror writer's not necessarily horrific blog

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  4. Hi Paul,
    I actually got that blog from something I started writing back when I worked 50 hours a week. I was being a mom and trying to manage everything and pay off some debts. I felt like I was losing the battle too but eventually, I quit one of my jobs after saving up some doe and I put that time into publishing my first book and other things. It gets easier and then harder and then easier. That's how I see life.

    Wooohhoooo, I honestly didn't know that many Twilight Zone fans till now. I'm gonna stick with you guys!

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  5. Easier. Then harder. Then easier.

    Thank you for that bit of wisdom. I guess I was just hoping it would get easier, but if I reflect back over life, that's been a pretty regular pattern.

    Just tell me that the "then harder" when it comes to the publishing/marketing morass is all relative, and not as hard as the first time.

    Paul D. Dail
    www.pauldail.com- A horror writer's not necessarily horrific blog

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  6. I like to think we get used to things and it gets easier the second time around, as if our mind and body adapts to the stress... then I think of Brittany Spear's comeback performance years ago on the VMAs and how horrible it was when her VMA appearances were always so incredible. I think that when it comes to art, if you stop putting passion into it, you lose the soul of your material. People might keep buying your books because they know you but is it still good? I battle with this a lot. I have to keep telling myself not to get too complacent.

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