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31 May 21 Counting

                                          Time Time Time Time

In time  running out of time give me the time of day is it that time already

out of time   in time look at the time don’t have the time take the time


watches alarms bells whistles          sun dials            arrivals

Time Time Time Time


What do we do with it? What would we do without it? Is it real? Is it an artificial construct? In the poem today, two people count time, and one counts time forward and one counts backward. Why the difference? 

Why can’t we move around in time the way we do in space? Why do we seem to be stuck on a relentless one-way conveyor belt into the future? Was there a beginning of the universe, and if so, what happened before?

The measurement of time began with the invention of sundials in ancient Egypt some time prior to 1500 B.C. However, the time the Egyptians measured was not the same as the time today's clocks measure. For the Egyptians, and indeed for a further three millennia, the basic unit of time was the period of daylight.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) said that Time is a prime conflict between relativity and quantum mechanics, measured and malleable in relativity while assumed as background (and not an observable) in quantum mechanics. To many physicists, while we experience time as psychologically real, time is not fundamentally real.

Our subjective sense of time seems to flow in one direction, which is why we remember the past and not the future. Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) claims that our brain measures time in a way where disorder increases in the direction of time – we never observe it working in the opposite direction.

“Time is unlikely to end in our lifetime, but there is a 50% chance that time will end within the next 3.7 billion years", says rebel physicist, Raphael Bousso. In other words, the end of time is likely to happen within the lifetime of the Earth and our Sun.

Isaac Newton (1643-1727) said that we are merely occupying time, he also says that humans can only understand relative time. Relative time is a measurement of objects in motion. The anti-realists believed that time is merely a convenient intellectual concept for humans to understand events. Time is not an empirical concept. It cannot be proven. 

It is not real.

Counting

α  


. . .3- -2- -1 - - we have ignition  

separation

                                ground to air  ⫛


10-9-8~7~~6~~~5~~~~~

lingering ~~ half/clinging

~to the swaying silver light

no one has to answer 

sliding 

shade

dimming

black

        gone under   ⩦

all that once held meaning

                                          drains away – even dreaming


Two count in one time

the first counts decades coming,

the other counts backward from future unravelling 

Both prey to the black-anodized reaper

who toys with them – a boy pulling flies’ wings 


TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK

clocks’ hands on faces never stop


Two Little Piggies

One Big Wolf

Who’s under that tattered red hood


Long and not so far in elsewhere time

                                          held probabilities– counting forward – counting higher

                                             could not wait for the storied “what” to expire

months and years rivering their course 

toward inevitable ice or fire 

or something else

10 – 11 – 12

promenade

graduation

 faked congratulations


TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK

Dance with me to the midnight clock

round and round the fickle watch

Kiss me once

Kiss me twice

To think of that feels so nice


one true love

   TICK   ѠШ  ӝ

                                             perhaps children six

TOCK

Darn kids make me sick


Love Potion # 9 didn’t work, of course

relief follows the first divorce

TICK ⩤ · ⩥

Ignore the one who planned, intended

2 + 6 equals can’t be mended

TOCK

Still, the 12 days of Christmas come around

one ragged partridge hIGung from a tree

but the 9 ladies keep a’ dancing

and the 10 gents still try their prancing


TICK  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Left- right pendulums swing hung on chains

One mouse runs up but makes no claim

He’s looking for a purpose under Heaven

but he’s rolled a five and needs a seven

Running down – no strike of one

His tail catches 3 – he is undone


               Time  Time  Time  

Hickory  Dickory Dock

    What happened!? Again it’s 12 o’clock!


Decades of days converge to one

The end for most but space for some

Tick – one more

Tock – one less

Tick – clock hands point a certain minute

Tock – with nothing in it

Count one coming

Count one less

Enter the final wilderness

Embrace it in all its loveliness

I got, got, got, no time to wait

I swear by the clock it’s not too late

Ω

Background

Time has always bothered me. To this day, I have never used an electronic calendar. I use a Daytimer®, a company that sells so many paper time trackers that it is still very much in business. I feel like I never have enough of something that isn’t real, but rather am mastered by a convenient human concept that I allow to enslave me. Though I don’t wear a watch, I am constantly aware of time passing and find it hard to break the stream off.

On the other hand (ha!), I can strike (ha!) all the above, because it’s about time (tee hee!) that I set (ouh!) things straight. Time is so embedded in all of us that we can’t watch (grrrruff) ourselves in any other universe.

 

Exploration 1: Do you believe time is real – or not? Why, in either case?

Exploration 2: What if time did not exist?

Exploration 3: Should we inquire into time’s reality? If so, why should we? If not, why?


Comments

  1. Did you write that poem? Pretty good.

    1. I say to Time, "You're just a construct."
    Time says, "I will bury you."

    2. Time does not exist. This is what non-existence looks like.

    3. Yes, we should inquire. It gives us something to do till Godot arrives.

    ReplyDelete

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