Time.

Sorting through my papers and organizing my binders tonight, I found the page that I used for the in-class free write from September 20th. Piecing together my choppy thoughts, I expanded on a few ideas and decided to share them. 





Time is a funny thing, isn't it?

But then again, and now that I actually think about my word choice there, "funny" may not be the very best word to describe it. Perhaps "interesting" is better? Of course, time is also powerful-- for time stops for no man, woman, child, king, ruler, God, whomever. And really, that scares me. Time scares me. No one can alter the flow of time- it's a simple universal principle.

But what is even more frightening, to me at least, would then be change. We go through life like an experiment, switching out one variable for the next, trying to see what works and what doesn't, until we come across that one particular combination of perfection that makes everything just work. The perfect job, the perfect school, perfect hobby, perfect relationship-- and we create a pattern for ourselves. The variables then become the constants, and mostly everything will seem manageable. In some rare cases, it may even seem perfect.

And now, just as you've established all that, who comes roaring in? None other than Time. Or maybe he takes the form of an old man, creeps up on you, slowly and unsuspecting, until he takes you by surprise. And suddenly, something is missing. And suddenly, one of your constants, your routine "perfections" has expired. You've been let go of your job, you have to move, a falling out with a friend, a relationship ends; everything expires. Nothing can be forever. It all has to do with time. We are, after all, simply human: as such, we too, expire. And anything with an expiration date is flawed. Immortality is true perfection, something we will never be, because we are mortal. We are human.

Can you see why Time scares me so much?

But it is because of this fatal flaw, the fact that we are so imperfectly human that it is we who are capable of such feats no creature other than man could dream of: adventuring to the moon, topping mountains like Everest and K-2, swimming across channels or oceans, flying in the sky and around the world, discovering secrets of the past, creating a cure. It's all we are capable of, all because we are so simply imperfect-- and human. And in it's own right, being human if much better than being perfect.