Fri, 19 Apr, 2024

Having Time

By Prakriti Shree Tuladhar

We all know that time flows at a constant rate. One second, two second, three second, four second, five second. There. 1/12th of a minute is gone.

For some people, that five seconds couldn’t have passed slower. And most of these people may very well be attending a boring class with a strict teacher. For others, the five seconds couldn’t have passed sooner. And most of these people may very well have just missed a bus. As for you dear reader, you’ve spent a 1/12th of a minute, 1/24th of an hour, (5/60*60*24)th of a day reading the seconds on this article.

Time is constant yet seems variable. We’ve all seen it and we’ve all felt it. But most of all, we’ve all heard it time and again. (See what I did there?!) This editorial is not about the variability in time. It is also not about the perception of time by people at different situations. Then what is it about?

Imagine it’s a lazy holiday. Presumably a Sunday.  You’ve had a holiday on Saturday that we spent in front of your laptop. You have nothing to look forward to on Monday. Believe me when I say, that’s when you realize how much time human beings are granted each day by the divine.

Presuming you woke up at 9 am. You cannot watch any more movies/ series/ animes because that’s what you did yesterday. At 10, you read a book for 3 hours straight. Good. You have the whole day now. You listen to the same songs on the your playlist because it takes time to download new songs since the WiFi is slow. You do it for half an hour before you realize the room is messy and if you don’t clean it today, you won’t clean it the whole week. So you do it while singing off key silently because you know how badly you sing. Great. It’s 3 now. And presuming you’re still energetic, you move on to clean the kitchen. Half way through you are hungry. So you make a sandwich and eat it. It’s 4 now. You can’t eat anymore. You sure can’t clean anymore. And your ears are protesting because they’ve had it with the songs. Great. Now you only have the whole evening. And it goes slowly like it did the whole day. Only now, you don’t have anything to keep you from checking the time.

What’s the point in checking the time anyway? There’s nowhere to be. There’s nothing to do. There’s just you and there’s just time.

And time moves on. Soon it’s blissfully time for bed and you sleep even though you don’t feel like you need to. And you wake up for yet another day. Another day full of time. This day you have college, lectures, friends, lunch-time, clubs, parties and assignments. But when you think about it, that’s what it is for the next day and the next and the next till Friday. And after Friday comes another Saturday and then a Sunday where you remember once again that there’s just you and there’s just time.