Time
«A watched kettle never boils», as they say. It’s as if time simply stands still, just when you need it to fast-track. However, if you walk away, it will boil ferociously, in seemingly no time at all. Our conception of time is vacant and obscure and only becomes obvious when one moment yields to the next, and daylight yields to darkness. Yesterday becomes today, and inevitably it becomes tomorrow without a trace of our interaction.
Time heals, but it’s a measured process rather than a snapshot surge however much you wish it would hasten. Quite the opposite for procrastinators, whose nemesis «time» accelerates inexplicably as the deadline approaches. I like to think that if I would reincarnate, I would waste less time on trivialities and spend more time on meaningful things. What exactly, escapes me currently.
Having spent my whole adult life working hard, with one eye on the clock and the other on my incessant list of priorities, I am now basking in the haven of retired timelessness. In other words, I have withdrawn from active life and can choose how I spend my time. I have stopped wearing a watch, as a constant reminder that my time is my own. In fact, I can afford to buy time; not literally, but by delegating jobs to other people. I pay for their time, to clean my house or bake my bread or do some repair work. They actually earn very well here in Switzerland, if you compare it with the price of a book; the author will have spent over a year writing it. He then tries to market it to a publisher and it finally ends up at a price per book, less than one hour’s worth of cleaning. Of course, the difference being, the cleaned location will get dirty again, but the book may be sold many times over, hopefully, for years to come.
Since it is so abstract, it’s strange when a person asks you, if you have the time. You definitely don’t, but you can refer to a clock and get a snapshot which is only relevant in that moment. Some people are excellent architects of their own time, and organise their lives with compelling meticulousness. I used to be like this, but now I revel in the luxury of round-the-clock «my time» where I choose when I eat, sleep and perform routine tasks. I feel I am becoming more and more similar to my dogs, who have no sense of time at all. When I come home from a meal out, they have no idea whether I’ve been out for five minutes or five hours, and that is good so.
At some point in time, when the «wise ones» were creating our clocks and calendars, they created an extra day every four years. This they somehow had to integrate with the agendas, in such a way that it would be globally applied. They invented 29. February, commonly known as leap year, much to the joy of unattached maidens, who could nab their partner with a marriage proposal. Similarly, some joker decided to create summer and winter time, so twice a year, we juggle around with our clocks and watches to gain or lose an hour and catch up with the rest of humanity who hopefully do the same. The trick is to remember that the clocks go forward in the spring and back in the autumn. Many a weary soul has turned up to church for their ecclesiastical duty an hour too late, by forgetting to readjust their alarm clock in the spring.
Talking of time, it is pure pleasure that I don’t need to be jolted out of my sleep by an intrusive alarm clock every morning. Yes, I think I can say, I’m having the time of my life, as a humble soul with no immediate tensions and certainly no gripping bucket list to trawl through, before I toddle of this mortal coil. In fact, it would be fair to say, I have learnt to spread my daily life so creatively over the 24-hour clock, that I would hardly find the time to go to work these days.
Photo: Pexels / Abdullah-678248