Yesterday we gained an hour when we turned back our clocks for the ole "Fall Back" portion of the semi-annual time-shifting equation. Since that "extra hour" happened while I was sleeping, my body just absorbed it while I dreamed of hitting the bestseller lists.
I'll notice the difference when I want to fall asleep about fourteen hours earlier than usual. Or when I look outside and see that it's pitch black by mid-afternoon, and I'm forced to acknowledge it's going to be like that until we get to fiddle with the clocks again in a few months.
Yet, even without all the clock changing, time is such a fluid commodity.
The other day I was absorbed with a story, and my brain zipped around like a toddler on a sugar blitz, shrieking, "And then THIS happened, and then THAT. . ." and my fingers nearly set the keyboard on fire keeping up with the frenzy of words.
It was a glorious experience watching the word count rack up, the same way the numbers whiz by on the gas pump nowadays. I didn't know if an hour had passed or if it was closer to a decade. It didn't even matter. The euphoria of being totally consumed by the story made time my bitch.
Of course, there are the other days: when time gets to be the dominant one, and I'm the meek submissive.
We humans supposedly experience the same sixty seconds to every minute, the same sixty minutes to every hour. But it feels like somebody is messing with that time-honored recipe when the words aren't flowing so freely. In fact, it's easy to believe that time is not only stretching out beyond eternity, it is also erasing two words every time you type a new one.
So I'm trying to look at this gift of an extra hour in a slightly different way. I resolve to not celebrate "Daylight Wasting Time" every day. Since I know that time is going to expand and contract—essentially giving me less time when I need it and more time when I don't—I plan to use it for the things that matter most.
For me that is going to be writing, and writing-related activities. (Yes, coffee and chocolate consumption are at the top of the writing-related activity list. It would be silly to say otherwise.)
Your list of what matters will vary from mine, and it should. We all value different things, and that's what makes life so interesting. It's also what gives us plenty of stuff to write about.
And I'm not going to promise I won't waste ANY time, ever. That's impossible. I just want to make sure the time wasting I do engage in doesn't prevent me from accomplishing the things that make me the happiest.
We never get that wasted time back. It's not something that can be reclaimed, recycled, or reused. Not even when we set our clocks backwards or forwards in a vain attempt to capture those elusive moments of daylight.
The best we can hope for is that we'll be given more time every single day—a minimum of twenty-four hours, one right after the other--along with the choice of how we'll use it.
Personal experience of passing time is really interesting!
I played a lot of sport in my youth and can remember many situations when time seemed to freeze. For example, once in a soccer game I had the ball at my feet within striking distance of goal but was blocked by several defenders. I couldn't see what to do for the best, but then everything seemed to slow down. I glimpsed the goal between the defenders and just kicked the ball towards it. Everyone seemed to freeze as the ball curled high into the air, looped a little and ended in the top corner of the net for a goal. At that point the clock seemed to start again.
I think this happens at moments of intense concentration and is a property of our mental space-time continuum. Rather like in physics when elementary particles approach the speed of light their clocks slow right down. When our thought processes become highly focussed on something, awareness of motion and movement around us ceases so that we lose the sense of time flowing.
Fascinating thoughts Donna! *smile*
Posted by: Quantum | November 08, 2011 at 03:12 AM
Q, I loved the description of your soccer goal! I think you're right about time freezing like that when we're intensely concentrating on something. I had a similar experience when I was driving one dark morning and a horse appeared out of nowhere, strolling across the road. Somehow time slowed down so that I could miraculously steer around the beast. LOL I'm still in awe of how it happened!
I love losing that sense of time when I'm writing. That hopefully means it will happen for the reader too -- which is always my goal!
Posted by: Donna Cummings | November 08, 2011 at 08:06 AM