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| Photo by Murray Campbell on Unsplash |
A Love Affair with Time
Humankind has always had a romance with time. We’ve written sonnets about it, invented calendars to tame it, and shaped civilizations around the rhythm of its pulse. In ancient days, time was the movement of the sun, the moon, and the stars—a celestial choreography that painted the sky with moments.
The Babylonians watched the heavens and gave us the 60-second minute and the 60-minute hour. The Egyptians, with their sundials, let shadows whisper the hour. The Mayans carved it in stone with cyclical calendars, seeing time as a loop rather than a line. Even today, the Gregorian calendar and the atomic clock are just human attempts to hold the infinite in our hands.
But what is time, really?
The Evolution of Time
To the ancient mind, time was divine—an ever-turning wheel or an endless spiral. But with the Age of Enlightenment and the birth of physics, we began to dissect time. Newton saw it as absolute—ticking away in the background of the universe, like a cosmic metronome.
Then came Einstein. And with a stroke of genius, he bent time.
According to his theory of relativity, time is not a constant. It stretches and shrinks depending on speed and gravity. The faster you move, the slower time flows for you. Near a black hole, where gravity is immense, time nearly stops. Suddenly, time was not the ruler but the ruled. It could be warped. It could be relative.
This idea wasn’t just theoretical. Astronauts on the International Space Station age slightly slower than we do on Earth. GPS satellites must adjust for time dilation to keep your Google Maps from leading you astray. Time, once thought immovable, dances to the tune of physics.
Chronos vs. Kairos: The Many Faces of Time
Most of us think of time chronologically—like a train on a track, with yesterday behind us and tomorrow up ahead. That’s Chronos, the ancient Greek god of linear time. It’s the kind of time that governs calendars, deadlines, and commutes.
But there’s another kind of time: Kairos—the opportune moment. It’s the pause in conversation when everything shifts. It’s the feeling of standing under a sunset and losing all sense of clocks. Kairos doesn’t care for precision; it cares for meaning. And that brings us to something even more intimate: the psychology of time.
Why Time Feels Fast or Slow
Have you ever noticed how time drags during a dull meeting but flies during a vacation? How childhood summers stretched endlessly, yet now the years seem to slip through your fingers?
This isn’t just poetic nostalgia—it’s science and psychology at play.
When we’re young, everything is new. Our brains are soaking in fresh experiences, forming new memories constantly. The denser the memory network, the longer time feels. As we age and routines settle in, fewer new memories are made, and time feels like it speeds up. Novelty expands our perception of time; familiarity compresses it.
Emotion plays a role too. Fear, anxiety, excitement—they all alter our internal clocks. In high-stress moments, like a car crash, the brain speeds up, creating the illusion that time has slowed down. In flow states—when you’re fully immersed in something joyful—hours can pass like seconds.
So, is time a strict, chronological force? Not always. Sometimes, it’s a river. Sometimes, it’s a sea. And other times, it’s a mirror, showing us who we are and what we hold dear.
Harnessing Time
Despite its elusive nature, we’ve become master timekeepers. We've built civilizations on the back of time—agriculture follows the seasons, schools divide the year into semesters, economies run on fiscal quarters, and technology depends on nanosecond precision.
Yet, perhaps our greatest achievement is not in measuring time but in learning how to live meaningfully within it. To know when to act, when to wait, when to remember, and when to dream.
In the End
Time is more than ticks on a clock or wrinkles on a face. It is memory. It is momentum. It is mystery.
We cannot hold it, but we can dance with it. We can shape it, stretch it, and savor it. And maybe, just maybe, in romancing time, we find what it means to truly be alive."
"Sonnet to Time
O Time, thou silent keeper of the stars,
Who weaves the dawn with threads of golden hue,
Thy touch can heal, yet leave the deepest scars,
A fleeting ghost, yet ever near and true.
Thou dost not pause for love nor plead for kings,
Thy rivers flow through joy and sorrow's shore,
Thou steal'st our youth on feather-softest wings,
Yet giftest wisdom as thy subtle lore.
In newborn cries and twilight's final breath,
Thy voice resounds—a song both sweet and wise.
Thou teach'st us life is not afraid of death,
But rich with fire that fades in velvet skies.
So let us dance, dear Time, in step, not race—
And meet thy passage with a lover's grace."
"The Timekeeper’s Waltz
Time doesn’t knock.
It tiptoes in—
soft as baby breath,
warm as milk on a sleepy chin.
In babyhood,
time is measured
in giggles,
in first steps,
in the triumphant shout of “mine!”
It is endless days of peekaboo
and magic hands that disappear behind tiny eyes
and return as if conjured by sorcery.
Childhood is next—
where time explodes
in sidewalk chalk and scraped knees,
and summers feel like they might last forever.
There are bugs in jars,
pajamas at noon,
and the cosmic mystery of why
adults never want to play just one more game.
Time tumbles into teenage,
where it slams the door
and plays music loud enough
to echo into space.
It flirts, it rebels,
it dreams in all-caps and midnight stars.
Time here is a mirror,
and sometimes you’re not quite sure
if you like the person looking back—
but oh, how brightly they shine
when they laugh.
In your twenties,
time is a blur of ramen noodles,
accidental wisdom,
and deciding between rent
and a plane ticket to somewhere reckless.
You make mistakes
and call them experience.
You collect first loves and
learn to let some of them go.
Your thirties arrive in comfortable shoes.
Time now has a calendar.
It’s booked and color-coded.
You fall in love again—
this time maybe for real—
and time becomes
a messy kitchen with little feet
and sleepy cheeks pressed
against yours at midnight.
You Google things like “how to do taxes”
and “how to keep a houseplant alive.”
Forty comes without fanfare.
Time here is the friend
who speaks the truth gently.
You realize the mirror is less enemy,
more storyteller.
Laughter lines become memories
you wear like medals.
You start saying “no”
not out of defiance—
but out of clarity.
Fifty brings freedom.
Time stretches again,
like it did in childhood.
You rediscover books,
long walks,
and the rare joy
of not needing to explain yourself.
Sixty, seventy—
you forget where you put your keys
but remember where you left your joy.
Time is slower now,
and sweeter.
Mornings are poetry.
Afternoons, naps.
Evenings, stories you’ve told a hundred times
that still make your grandchildren laugh.
And elderhood—
ah, elderhood—
Time no longer ticks.
It hums.
You sit beneath the same tree
you once climbed,
and know that the leaves falling now
are not endings—
they are applause.
You laugh for no reason
other than remembering
the best moments in life
are the ones you didn’t plan.
And when Time finally nods to you,
as an old friend does,
you’ll smile, stand,
and take its hand.
Because you've danced every step
of the Timekeeper’s Waltz."
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