What is time?

It seems like Sunday is a very 'thoughtful' day for me, haha! It is always during Sunday, where I contemplate about the simplest but most difficult questions to answer in this world, simplest because it consist of only 3 words and it is easily understood by people what the question is asking, difficult because there is so much label, wisdom and knowledge that is underneath that simple question. Well, this weekend, I was contemplating the question "What is TIME?". I will attempt to write all the thoughts that I have when contemplating about it.

Referring to the last blog entry I wrote, I said that people come and go in your life, sometime they return, sometime they do not, gone forever. Couples separated because of 'irreconcilable' issues, death, met someone better and so on. Friends and colleagues separate because of arguments, move house, took on different jobs. A guy and a lady came together to become couple but later they went on separate ways, but even later, they become couples again, sometime more loving than before. Now the thing is this, no one will know how it will develop except for one thing. He is definitely the Know-It-All, but apparently it is not able to speak in our language that is why we can never seek the answer we want although we know he is the Know-It-All. Yes, you guessed it, the answer is Time. Remember the idiom that most of us used? "Only time will tell."

What is time made of, if that is the case? Well, time is made up of three components and these three components are the ingredients of what we can achieve in our lives. The three components are Past, Present and Future. Best part is that Past is the ingredient for Present and Present is the ingredient for Future.Those smart enough should know what I mean. What we do in the past will made up of our Present and what we do with the Present will determine how our Future would look like. And these three parts are unique to everyone of us, and how we use our Past, Present and Future will also how the other people's Past, Present and Future would look like. Think about it.

Because what we do in the Present will affect the Future, a lot of successful people will always tell you to "Seize the moment." Do what you need to do in the Present and let the future unfold. Our Future is determined by the action of others' Present as you can read from "Wisdom of the Crowds"That is why it makes our Future always uncertain. So if you are able to build a Time Machine I bet that everytime you go to the Future, it will just be a different future every time. Impermanence as what Buddhist call it, is that our Future is always uncertain no matter what. We create our Future with each and every second of the Present that pass by. Now knowing the principle or impermanence does not mean you do not plan at all. It just means that if you want to achieve the Future you want, do what you can in the Present to raise the odds of the desired Future you want. :) As the chinese saying goes:"To plan is human, to succeed is heaven." but if you do not seize the Present and take actions that would raise the odds, you would just be certain that the Future is not what you desired.

And if you notice, although time is made up of Past, Present and Future, we can never enter the Future phase but we will go through the Past and never be back again, right? Because we will always be in the Present. The Future is always turned into Present and the Present we are in is always constantly turned into the Past. :) That is why we can never go back to the Past or go forward into the Future. We will alway be in the Present. The Future is the Present that will be coming and the Past is actually the Present that have.... well passed. :)

Time is really powerful if you look at it from many angles. Let me go through those that I have seen. First angle is "Time is Medicine". Why I said that? Remember every time someone goes through sad phase in life, be it the death of love one or the departure of a love one, someone will comfort him or her by saying:"Only time can cure." And as time goes by moving from the Present to the Future, the person will slowly 'crawl' out of the sad phase in his life and move on in his life, well of course, some people come out fast and some people come out slow, but in any way, they will come out at the end. If you look at the addiction of drugs, if you want to quit it, you also need time to help. Going cold turkey does not help if time does not move. But thank goodness, time will always move, no matter what.

Time like I mentioned is the best fortune teller in this world. And as I mentioned, it will never tell us the Future. It will just crawl at its own pace and reveal your Future Present slowly to you. Sometime making you very flustered because you really want to know what has or will happen. For example, when you are waiting for your major exam results. The wait is extremely long especially when you know the timing of the release of the result. But there is nothing you can do because well, who can kick Time's ass and ask him to move faster? No one.

Time is the Know-It-All as I mentioned before. Who would have imagined that the human can cross over the ocean by sea first and later by air? No one, would have imagined that, but I am sure Time has seen it. Who can know when someone dies, when someone is born, when a terrorist attack will result, when someone will get married, when someone will get a girlfriend....... No one will know except Time. And again He will not tell you about it, just require you to walk with him at his own pace until you reach the answer that you want.

Time is one of the best coordination tool ever 'invented' by man. Well, if you look back in the ancient days. Time is the one that coordinates all human activity. And Time 'came' from the Sun and the Moon, the positions of it. Using the position of the Sun and the Moon in the sky, Man is able to coordinate much of their activities especially those that are large scale. As we move with Time, time shows us more inventions that can make better use of him, like the sun dial and later on to watches. Without watches, I am sure meetings cannot be arranged, concerts will be attended by very few people, exams cannot be administered, everything will be chaotic. So you see, time is one of the biggest and best coordination tool that we have.

Time is the fourth dimension that most people are looking for. We all know the three dimensions, basically length, breadth and height. These three things have basically give all things a solid feature, something that can be grabbed. What if we add time in as another dimension? So we actually have a 'time' line and the three dimension will change or remain as we move through the time dimension.

Ok, I think these are the thoughts I have about TIME, at the Present. :) Whatever it is, since we cannot move him back or forward. Don't fight him then. Just go with him at his pace and enjoy the walk and remember "Seize the moment."

Cheers!