It's About Time

Time's an interesting thing, isn't it? It can go fast one minute, slow the next. There are times when I've been watching the clock and was sure I saw it go backwards.

Time is given equally to everyone. Sure, some people may die earlier than others, some may live to be 120, but each minute that each of us has is the exact same amount of time that everyone else's minute is. We all have 24 hours in each day (except the people at NASA working with the Mars rovers; they have to work on a Mars day). What's amazing, though, is how differently different people can spend the same amount of time.

I like to look at various modes of transportation in relation to time. If I sit at work for 10 hours, I go nowhere. If I walk for 10 hours, I can go about 30 miles, or about from home to work. If I run for 10 hours (if I could run for 10 hours), I can go about 60 miles.

But if I get in a car and drive for 10 hours I can be pretty close to the ocean in California, or in the middle of nowhere in eastern Colorado. Ten hours in a plane can get me to Europe, having crossed about 1/3 of the planet's surface.

If I'm sitting in a car or a plane or my cubicle, I'm doing the same thing: just sitting there. Sure, I may get a drink from time to time, eat a meal, do some puzzles, but there's not much correlation between what I do and how far I travel. The only difference is the speed at which I'm traveling.

Speaking of time, I started this post almost two full weeks ago, but you wouldn't know that unless you read this line. I could have just picked up where I left off and you wouldn't have had any idea.

The downside of waiting two weeks to finish a post is that you forget about what it was you were planning to write. I do remember, however, that I was planning to include some of the lyrics to the song "Time" by Pink Floyd, but only because it's a good song. Oh, and because it's about time.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
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