New experiences imbue our time with an intensity that makes a few hours feel like a long stretch of days. A different kind of intensity—or tedium—and days or weeks can pass in what feels like an instant.
We previously reflected on the musings of Paris Hilton. There was a secondary reason for her decision to employ a surrogate mother. Quoted in the Hindustan Times, Hilton said, “My schedule is out of control. There never would’ve been the right time to do it because there’s literally no time to do anything in my life.”
Of course, we understand the thrust of what she is saying; carrying her own child in her womb was a cumbersome endeavor for which she has not allotted adequate time. How she states her conundrum, however, is revelatory of how most of us live our lives. “There’s literally no time to do anything in my life.”
Eat, sleep, work, clean, repeat: the nothings of our lives. As T.S. Eliot seems to lament, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons…” Somehow, most of us manage to find several hours a day to mindlessly consume videos and images on our “smart” little telephones, crippled by too much anxiety to use the phone to talk to another human being directly. But there are just not enough hours in the day to do the things we really want to do.
In his “Confessions,” St. Augustine asked, “What then is time? Provided that no one asks me, I know. If I want to explain it to an inquirer, I do not know.” In addressing the question philosophically, Augustine concludes that the present moment is all that exists. The past is gone, and the future is not yet. It is the present moment that is real. To be immersed in the present moment, unaware of past and future, is the foretaste of eternity, a state of being beyond what we can imagine but which we crave.
Children are especially good at being immersed in the present moment (just as they are often exceptionally bad at planning for tomorrow’s necessities). This explains why the healthy child will experience so much fun; fun is predicated on achieving a state of flow.
Instead of feeling anxious about what we are not doing (which leads to an obsessive focus on past failures and future fears), we can learn to be more tethered to the present moment for improved happiness. And, by being in the present moment, we may start to notice the times we can actually do the things we want to do: be with children, cook meals, read books, arrange flowers. As unimpressive as our efforts in all areas may be, they can be the most satisfying for us because they are real.
A woman who has spent a many a day thinking about time, Laura Vanderkam, describes eloquently how to experience the feeling of more of it. One way is the practice of savoring. Vanderkam writes, “To savor is to feel pleasure, and also to appreciate that you are feeling pleasure. It takes normal gratification and adds a second layer to it: acknowledgment. That this appreciation expands time can be understood by thinking of the opposite. When you want time to pass quickly, you might wish yourself elsewhere. When you want to prolong something, you hold yourself right where you are.”
Noticing the ways in which you are exactly where you want to be, not totally, not completely, but the many ways in which, is the beginning of eternity, an ever-present state of being with no regretted past or longed for future.
In closing a few brief thoughts on time, how could I not quote at length Pink Floyd’s poetic homage “Time”:
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun
And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun
But it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way
But you’re older
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught
Or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation
Is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over
Thought I’d something more to say
