‘TIME’
“Time is linear”, “a
straight line is the shortest distance between two points”, “the mitochondria
is the powerhouse of the cell”, “a tax is a fine for doing good and a fine is a
tax for doing bad” etc. were things I was taught in primary school (Isn’t it
funny how most of the things we know now are based on the things we learnt early
in life and apparent dumbness can be traced straight to poor early education?)
but I digress.
The human mind has
been taught to perceive time as linear, as the period between tasks we are
performing and the next task to be performed. Think of this; if I were to ask
you the time now, you’d reply with whatever your clock says, but
subconsciously, your mind is saying “it’s 2pm already? But I woke up by 11!” or
“wow, it’s still 4pm; 5 more hours till Nepa will be useful”. We cannot fathom
time as a phenomenon on its own, but must be attached to something else, to
understand its form.
The plan for a
‘fulfilled’ life is being born, growing up, attending school, graduating from
nursery, primary, secondary and tertiary institutions, getting a job, getting
married and having children; all these preferably in the first 30years of life.
Continue working to be able to afford a (better quality of) life for your own
offspring, retire, grow old and die, having fulfilled The Procreation Decree.
But is that all there is to time? I have
friends who have been told since before they could understand the English
language that they are reincarnates of their grandparents; I myself have been regularly
informed by my mother that 3months before I was born, her late father appeared
to her in a dream and told her he was coming back (which prompted my nickname
“Dad(dy)”).
I have a few issues
with time; I hate the “time moves fast when you’re enjoying yourself” and “time
crawls in Math class” paradigm & please has anyone solved the ‘If you go
back in time and kill your grandfather, you might or might not exist’ paradox?
The hen and the egg?
My biggest problem
with time, however is how time can be a damp blanket over a particular period;
how you might only remember a (‘good’, ‘okay’ or ‘great’) 3 year relationship
as a bad one because it ended in cheating, how it convinces you that high
school was a good time because you graduated, how your childhood was ‘alright’,
because you’re here and ‘normal’ (not knowing you need years of trauma counseling).
How you can look back in your life and pinpoint certain periods and be
happy/sad/angry or laugh, but forget that there were things that led to it or
things that occurred after it.
That’s why I’ve
chosen to take every moment for what it is and what it brings and not view them
via the scope of time, but view each as a piece of a whole. Since then, this
Covid-19 situation has been more than just tiring to me, it’s been infuriating,
immensely exciting, hilariously mundane, mind-numbingly boring, remarkably
energizing but, as a whole, I can’t wait for it to leave so I can see what time
has to offer next.
Time isn’t the 12
months that makes up a year or the 4/5 years of your Uni education. Time is the
365,000,000 moments that make up 1 week out of that year and every single
moment of your 4/5-year Uni adventure.
Time is doing what it
must (move forward), we can only do our best to trudge along right beside it.
Tomorrow will make it 5 months since my grandma has been
buried. Lost her a few days to Christmas 2019 and since then, well, the world
hasn’t been the same. But instead of a holistic remembrance of her, I’ve begun
to take it days and moments at a time. Willingly going to her house to eat one
of her concoctions (Indomie and bread was a special dish), avoiding her because
she wants to give one of her lectures on how I’m to ‘big-brother’ my siblings
and cousin since I’m the first son of the family, gisting with her and teasing
that I’ll marry a northerner, caring for her whenever health problems arise and
her promising me she won’t die until she’s carried my child (women lie unprovoked),
her complaining about my father to me, etc.
Live IN the moment,
Carpe diem!
