Time

PS: This is my opinion ... a few weeks ago. Thought I might share it with all of you out there.
Real Date: 24/9/04

It’s 8:51 p.m. About an hour ago, I was waiting for a commuter train. When I looked around me, everyone looked so tired. They got impulsive when a train did not make it to the station. The next train will be arriving in another 15 minutes time. The faces of some turned really black. When the train was there, they rushed in, not even waiting for the passengers to come out before putting their smelly feet into the train.

This is just a mild example of humans waging a war against time. Humans have always wanted to gain time, especially for those in the city. It’s ironic isn’t it? In the city, so many gadgets are designed for human convenience – for them to save time. We have coffee maker, so that every morning we make up, press a button, go into shower, come out, have a cup of coffee and head to work. We have cars, trains, LRTs to make our journey faster. But, why when we compare humans living in the city and humans living in areas untouched by these things, humans in cities who have so many thingamabobs to save time seem to be rushing for time? Does that mean the gadgets we invented are actually slowing us down?

No. It’s not the gadgets. It’s our minds. We have always wanted time. We want more time for this. We want more time for that. Soon, we come up with all sorts of time saving inventions, but every time a brilliant mind comes up with something like this, our thirst for extra time grows. I can say that, we humans have always been racing against time, and we have always been losing. We can never win over time. Some of us think that time travel is possible, I do not deny the fact that it might be possible, but if time travel were possible, that means everything that’s happening now is like the rolls of film for a movie. It’s written there, it’s still there. Every minute can be replayed; every second would happen again, every millisecond would be a frame of the whole movie.

Then again, why would we want to conquer time? Two reasons; and both are inter-related. Alright. First, every living being on Earth has a limited life span. A human’s average life span is 80 years old. We want to live our lives to the fullest. We want to use every second of that limited time to the maximum. We would not want to waste time traveling or waiting. Secondly, notice that I’ve been using the word want? Yes. We have insatiable wants. Every time something new is invented to fuel our burning desire, our appetite grows. We are greedy creatures. Notice how much land have we wrestled from the various life on Earth? Notice how much natural resources we’ve exhausted? And we still want more of these. Now, we’re reaching up into the skies – to other planets to gain them. We want a fresh new environment to live in. We want more resources. We want more land. Greed is human nature in general. Want an example?

Okay. Let’s say now we have 2 cars. They are essentially the same. They are perfectly same. Now, we look for 2 men, A and B. We give each of them one car. A, after receiving the car, would “see” that B has the better car and might go for B’s car. And vice versa. Isn’t this the most normal scenario that happens to us? “The grass is always greener on the other side.” So true. We might need to give whoever invented this phrase a credit.

You might want to argue that greed is not human nature? Well… I agree. Maybe it’s the nature of living things. You might argue that, not everyone is looking for more money. Not everyone wants to own more property. That is true. But first, let’s define greed. What do you think greed is? It is desire; desire for more of anything. Ask yourself. Have you not wanted more of anything? Have you not wished you had that special something? Someone perhaps? Love maybe? Or for yourself to be a different person? A nice meal, then a better one? A cozier bed? Somewhere better to sleep in? I know some of these sounds like a simple request – but they’re still wants. They’re still the desire to have more of something, even though it’s mild. Let’s not look at humans. Let’s journey through the living beings in general. Animals have always wanted territory, mates, to leave their genes, to have more offspring. What do you think now?

Well… It’s 9:26 now. I admit. I myself am a quite greedy person. I am a person, who is also waging a losing war against time. I know someday, I might succumb to greed and become another mindless man chasing after zealous desires. But, as for now, I will want to spend my time thinking about what good things await me the coming day. I have to go bathe and I’ll take my time and enjoy it. Cheers. It is now 9:30 p.m. Goodnight.