Well, here it is, the first day of 2007. Yes, tempus fugit. Time flies! But where does it go?Many years ago, I read a book called Momo by Michael Ende. It was a story built around the fantasy that time could be saved - just like money. I would love to find and reread this book, now long out of print. I think the story is a powerful and provocative statement about what life is really all about.
We humans have the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation, creating within ourselves an endless preoccupation with the past and the future: the past which gives us our identity and the future which holds the promise of some form of fulfillment. With this focus, we live in a perpetual state of discontent and unease.
We often talk about “saving time”. We have an obsessive need to “arrive”, to “get there”, to “make it” We speed up, increase efficiency, take shortcuts, multi-task, etc. all in an effort to “save time” so as to be able to enjoy life at some point in the future. And in so doing we lose something very precious. Time is life itself and the more we strive to “save time” the less we experience the present moment. The more “clock time” we save, the less “psychological time” we have to spare.
An hour can seem like eternity or it can pass in a flash, but the reality is that I can no more prolong a moment of delight or speed up an unpleasant or painful event than I can hold a sunray or a moonbeam in my hand.
The concept of time (past, future) is illusory. There is no time machine that allows us to go back and undo the past or go ahead to pre-arrange the future. Life only happens now. It does not happen in the past or in the future. Life is now. In the final analysis, all there is to life is here, now, in this present fleeting moment.
This perspective of time leaves me with a feeling of timelessness, of serenity. More and more I focus on living right now. No matter what, I know I can be happy, I can cope, I have all I ever need or want - right here, right NOW.
