TIME

Time is my One Little Word for 2010 and this page will be my journal documenting my adventures with this word.  Of course, once I get going I may find it doesn't really work out this way and the page may fall into disrepair and neglect, or disappear altogether, but for now, here at the start of the journey, this is the plan.

Why did I chose this word? Because I want to have more me time, I want to relax more, I want to spend more time with my DDs, I want do more crafting, I want to be less stressed at work.  All of this involves learning to manage my time more effectively.  In order to get where I want to be I need to focus on time, think about where my time goes, where I waste time, where I can save time.... so it became obvious that the road to reaching my goals was TIME.

1. Does Time Exist?
According to J. M. E. McTaggart in The Unreality of Time and subsequently Julian Barbour in The End of Time, no.
Barbour says:

Time as such does not exist but only change

Of course, he is speaking of scientific theories and physics much of which, I have to admit, goes straight over my head.  However, when he goes on to say:

..unlike the Emporer dressed in nothing, time is nothing dressed in clothes.  I can only describe the clothes

it makes sense to me.

Time, at least measured time, is a social construct.  The sun rises, moves across the sky, then sets, and another day has passed - that is natural time and is something we can all see and understand.  Even animals and flowers live by that kind of time.  Measured time, however, is something man made.  We have split the days into smaller and smaller units: hours, minutes, seconds, nanoseconds.  We have then constructed more and more precise instruments to measure these units but, in the end, these units are the clothes Barbour speaks of and none of us can describe what, if anything, wears these clothes.

We spend time, we buy time, we waste time, we make time, we lose time, we need time but can we touch, feel and taste time?  Can we hold it in our hands, can we see it?  It rules our lives, we are slaves to the clocks we have made to measure the units we have created!

However, having said all this, although time is a social construct I live in the society that has constructed it and therefore have to abide it's tyranical grip.

Time then, this non-thing, is my enemy.  I shall know my enemy and hope to make it my slave instead of my master.