A Meditation on Time

Consider two contrasting conceptions of time:

1. From the Hannibal Lecter movie Red Dragon:

Will Graham (Edward Norton): I don't have much time.
Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins): Oh, but I do. I have oodles.

2. From the award-winning movie, The Hours:

Richard Brown (Richard Harris): I don't think I can make it to the party, Clarissa.
Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep): Uh.. You don't have to go to the party, you don't have to go to the ceremony, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You can do as you like.
Richard Brown: But I still have to face the hours, don't I? I mean, the hours after the party, and the hours after that...
Clarissa Vaughn: You do have good days still.. You know you do!
Richard Brown: Not really...I mean, it's kind of you to say so, but it's not really true

To most of us, time is a very limited commodity. We slice our days into hours and minutes and place our activities within these artificial compartments. We live within the interstices of time, starting and terminating things based on an imposed schedule. Very often we feel trapped by our routine because these time markers are like bars that imprison us within narrow confines.

We are also often reminded that time is money. Time is to be "spent" wisely. The more successful among us are those who are good at investing their time to generate material weath - exchanging the mutable and transient with something more durable. Only to realise that we also need time to enjoy the material wealth that we have accumulated. Some spent their whole lives accumulating and never get to enjoy the fruits of their labour. They are, for lack of a better word, spent.

Time for most of us, is a constant struggle against decay and depletion. We age, we wither and we die. Before the fuse gets burnt, we have to get an education, build a career, find a life partner and start a family - another preimposed schedule to be accomplished within the Great Interstice called a lifetime. We are told that time will pass us by, if we are not vigilant. Time is a ruthlessly efficient rush-hour train that does not wait for passengers. Which is why we often feel that life is such a rush, and in moments of reflection, we would say, how time flies.

Benedictine monks view time differently. In his book The Music of Silence, Brother David Steindl-Rast gives a beautiful account of how time is experienced by monks in a Benedictine monastery. Time to them is a process of filling-up, of realising the fullness of the day. Time flows and nourishes a soul as it traverses the day, unfolding its inner potential. The cycle of time is not a monotonous repetition of routines, tasks and schedules but an upward moving spiral where the soul transforms and breaks into higher levels of realization.

Whether one is running out of it, trying to kill it or has oodles of it, time is life. To live is to experience time. And the metaphors we choose to experience time determines the quality of our lives.