What does a clock do when it's hungry? Goes back four seconds!
Time. Wouldn't it be cool to go back to a certain moment, day, or week in life? Time is a force. We have no control over its inevitable clutches. Time is the monster that brings havoc to skin, skeletal systems, and spunk over the decades. But is our perception of the passing of time different depending on how we're 'spending' that time? Or, more importantly, when we spend it in the course of life? It seems so.
Ever since I was three years old I wanted a wrist watch (see above photo-on right wrist-and if you go back to the previous blog post you see the watch I'm wearing at eight years old). I know teens today have no use for them, however, I took a survey recently of a varied demographic of age groups and asked: "Do you wear a wrist watch?" The results were not surprising based on my day-to-day observations. Those who responded "No"= 71%. "Yes=18% and "Sometimes"= 11%. With the advent of the Smartphone, many have no need of the added accessory which indicates time.
When young, I'd stared at the minute hand tick away around the watch's face. It was neat and intriguing to me. Practically, every birthday I would ask for a watch for my present. I would wear it everywhere. When my grandma Beavers passed away and her grandkids selected a "memento" - I preciously wanted to continue to care for grandma's wrist watch. A symbol I would touch with my fingers when I held hands with her. Both then and now.
Looking back at those moments, days, and weeks of my childhood, it seemed time was this vast chunk of space. Something called "future" seemed a long way away; it was beyond my grasp. We just concluded, in class, reading and analyzing The Great Gatsby. Like any literary masterpiece, I continually discover something deeper and insightful about life that was previously in the shadows.
Time for Jay Gatsby is a constant fight against the process of securing his dream. Time, itself , is his enemy. Gatsby wanted to relive the past which was impossible for time to permit. Gatsby, in fact, insists on playing with time in this dream-like way just led to, as Nick commented, [Gatsby is] "running down like an overwound clock." In essence, memory then serves as the glue that can allow time to be frozen. But we also understand that time in flux becomes the catalyst for the seed of unalterable decay; a reality we must accept.
I like the perceptual experience of watches, clocks, and timepieces because the symbolic representation of force is so relentless and compelling. Perhaps, when as a child, I had an unexpressed desire to cling to a moment in time; a moment of youth that seemed perfect.
Unlike Gatsby, wearing a watch is not an indicator that it's "too late!" and all is lost. With me, my wrist watch, which records and measures time, assures and motivates me to hear the tictock of a running clock...so as to capture its fleeting gifts.
-----Next week's Part II: The Perception of Time and a No- nonsense, easy to understand theory of Time. Come back!