My last writing ignited my curiosity about exploring the fourth dimension of the universe: time.
Almost everyone knows that Einstein proved that “time is relative.” Only some non-scientists know that Einstein concluded later in his life that, “for us physicists, the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one.”
When I first learned this watershed notion in Modernity class at Whitman College, I got a migraine headache just thinking about the time paradox.
I believe that time is hard to define. Although we clearly see the effects of time as our bodies age gracefully and as children grow yearly, we cannot see, touch, feel, smell or hear time. Too often time is equated with money, but time is much more than money. Time is the most precious and irreplaceable commodity in the world.
To borrow from Denis Waitley’s memorable description of lost time, each passing day costs us something priceless: another 24-hour golden day, divided into diamond minutes and ruby seconds—and once spent, it is gone forever.
Often, when we endure a lengthy illness or suffer the loss of someone we love, we lament the passing of time. Faced with human mortality, we cry not for more degrees, titles, money, cars, or homes—the edifice complex—but desperately pray for just a little more time. Yet many who plead the loudest for more time thought nothing of squandering it yesterday.
The truth is that we all have the same amount of time available each week, whether rich or poor: 168 hours. 10,080 minutes. 604,800 seconds.
How much of your time is spent plugged into a television screen?
How much of that time do you enjoy with your inner circle or spend exploring the beauty of nature, museums, architecture, or music? How many kids do you mentor? How many forgotten mentors have you called simply to say, Thank You? And, very importantly, how many sunrises and sunsets have you seen?
In the pursuit of material excess, too many of us forget to measure time by the lives we touch.
Live every moment as if it might be your last, because none of us knows when God will reach into His “garden of life” and prune an undesired weed or pick a promising rosebud.
For anyone who wants to grapple more seriously with Einstein’s concepts of time, I highly recommend Peter Galison’s Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré’s Maps: Empires of Time.
I’m always open to connecting with kindred spirits and imbibing disparate ideas. If you’re nearby, let’s meet for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you’re around the world, we can be pen pals.
“The mosaic of life is made of serendipitous encounters that are too often ignored. Each of these moments offers the possibility to alter our trajectory like a vector traveling through space and time.”
— Arthur Leggett