 Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock...
Listen carefully...Do hear it? That's the constant, inevitable sound of time, your own personal prison. You are trapped, just like everyone around you, and there is no way out. That watch you are wearing is the handcuff you've worn voluntarily; its there to bring you back to the “real” world and make sure you are where you have to be on time.
No matter where you go, no matter where you look be sure to see those twelve numbers and two hands, reminding you that you are doomed. And you know what the worst part is: we created it ourselves.
I'm not sure if we can even define it properly...The most common definition is that time is a human perception of movement of matter or the happening of an event. It did not always exist. It is not an illusion created by us as much as it is an inevitable mode of comprehending reality. However there are different opinions indicating that time does not exist as just an illusion, or those who say the opposite, like Plato himself, that time is constant, its life is the illusion. Or again those who believe, like Albert Einstein, that time is yet another dimension, if I'm not terribly mistaken. And of course those who note that time is defined by entropy, such as Stephen Hawking. I don't know about you, but personally I'm not at all interested in these fancy theories. For me, whether its an illusion, time does exist and it has a major impact on our daily lives. In fact I will go so far as to state that time is one of the main causes of depression, negativity and self-destruction.
I can almost hear some of you saying “Oh well, it's not that bad. Besides I can't even imagine what we would have done without a time concept. It's just a little price we pay for being a part of the civilized world.” You are right. What would we have done if we weren't running out of time to take our time to have some real quality time? I bet we would have survived without it.
You know what, I think it is not natural for us to live within these time boundaries. As newborns, we are actually forced to adapt to this strict system we have created. We are all brought up with a certain bedtime, sleep time, dinnertime and even play time. Tell me which one of you didn't scream your guts out when your parents told you that it was bedtime. Maybe if we weren't forced to sleep at 8 p.m. as children, we would sleep during the day and do our thing at night just like vampires! That probably wouldn't happen as most of us like sleeping in the dark, but who knows how are lives would be if we weren't forced to adapt this strict time system.
I don't know about you but I'm really sick and tired of this time concept. Time creates pressure, time creates fear, time creates limits... It sucks to know that everything has a time limit. Of course sometimes it's thrilling to know that you have 5 minutes before a boring lecture ends, but it's also devastating to know that you have to get up at 6 a.m. These are very simple examples but there are many more serious cases where time creates a huge brick wall right in front of you. It takes away your freedom and also your free will. Your biological clock ticks, your psychological clock ticks, and you find your self making decisions that you are forced to make because you simply do not have enough time!
The whole reason why I've just rambled all my hate is that I've just recently realized a fact about my own personal life. If I just simply forget about the time concept and do what I really want without looking at my watch, I catch a glimpse of how my life could be without all these barriers and limits. I am not naïve, even though I'm mostly thought to be. I know that in today's world we can not snap our fingers and abolish the whole timekeeping system. We all have responsibilities and dreams we want to reach before our time is up, but I believe temporarily erasing the time concept would not hurt anyone. In fact, it will do you a lot of good. Trust me, I'm not just trying to kill time here.
By Eda Erdem (TRIN/IV)
a_erdem@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
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