The Surly Face of Time

Well, talk about surly faces! When you get to my age, time's face (not to mention your own) is not just surly but terrifying. Fierce and unfriendly and threatening. Not a face to take to your bosom or cuddle with a big hug. Be wary indeed of Time's surly face.

 

But wait. How true is this? Perhaps Time's surly face is but a mask that can be whipped off, if you're brave enough, to reveal Time itself. So what is the REAL face of Time? Time's real face is not forbidding but welcoming, like the soft-eyed face of your favourite grandmother. Come with me, it seems to say, and I'll take good care of you. Don't be put off by the mask (and by the way, congratulations on having been brave enough to rip it off; not everyone is). I'm actually just as curious about my progress as you are. I have no idea where we're headed—but we are headed there together.

 

Hold my hand and let's explore. I'll be your Virgil through these circles of what has been, is, will be. It's much greater, you know, than simply the effect it has on you. I, as Time, affect everything.

 

Some, of course, argue that I don't exist, that I am simply a construct of man. Bosh. Man may have come up with ways of measuring me with clocks and calendars, but every creature knows the difference between night and day, that there is a time to sleep and a time to hunt for prey and a time to play.

 

This is how he spoke to me, the unmasked Time, and I almost believed him. He's quite compelling in his arguments. But then I remembered other theories—relativity, for example—that refute the separate existence of time. So I am denying Time's claims. I find him an unreliable narrator. Presenting himself as benign is a good ploy, and he almost sucked me in, almost had me ready to follow him through both history and the present/future.

 

But I want other ways of exploring. Time-less ways. I want free movement between all realms, and the only way to get that is to be free of Time. I'll think about this.

 

In the meantime, even if you do believe in Time, at least have the wit and presence to remove his surly mask. Don't let him threaten you, scare you with his consequences, rule your daily existence, regulate your hours (so many for work, so many for sleep, etc.). It's all false. It's all a construct that you can escape by denying the tyranny of Time.

 

But where, you ask, are my practical examples? What are my concrete suggestions for escaping Time? How is the young working couple with two children to break out of Time's constraints? I could be cavalier about it and say, "First, deny Time, the rest will come to you." Actually, that's what I WILL say.

 

SLOW DOWN. When I was younger, the phrase that someone was "slowing down" was like a death knell. ("Oh, my dear, she's slowing down!") It meant that that person was no longer herself. Her faculties were diminishing, from mobility to eyesight and hearing. But now I find that slowing down is a choice, and a positive one at that. The world spins faster and faster every year, and the only way to deal with that is to consciously slow down. Don't go along with it. Stop striding as if the fate of the world depended on your arriving someplace. Don't rush through every task risking life and limb as you gallop up and down steps, chop onions faster than the eye can see, do all your correspondence by email and wait impatiently for replies. Slow down. You will find yourself happier once you have made this choice.

 

SIT after you get dressed in the morning and contemplate your breathing in the weight of your body. Move slowly to the phone when it rings; it's probably only a telemarketer (I had what must have been a wrong number recently when a political canvasser asked me to consider coming on-side with a local Conservative candidate).

 

Slow down and the surly face of Time will become only a dim memory.

 

 

Copyright 2012 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com