What means time

What does time mean to you?

Time – what does it mean to you? 

Thinking it time and wondering about...What is the time? How would you describe it? How we perceive time?

Do we know all about time?

Can we understand the time?

Can we control the time? How do we measure time?

How time is affecting us?

Time may be an abstract, immaterial, irreversible, flowing (in one single direction - from what we can perceive) and relative thing, and we're related to it in everything we are and do, more or less conscious about.

That means time - Hourglass - Pixabay Annca

That means time? Some would say that:

- time is a simple dimension; that we have passed, present and future;

- time is only present (past and future non existing in their opinions);

- time is a portal to another dimension about which humans are not prepared yet to perceive and understand it;

- and others are saying that it's nothing more than a human mind invention and, in fact, it does not exist in reality and we invented it to mark up our actions and existence.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." - Steve Jobs

Also, for humans, the time may be a scary thing, the cause is showing a starting point, a path, and the end, again irreversible.

So, a bit after they have learned to play with fire, later their main concern was to delay their end. They invented pyramids and cryogenic technologies to postpone aging, but for thousand years, besides measuring it, I'm not sure if anyone was able to discover a concrete way to control time, while for the moment, time for sure does control us.

"Don't count every hour in the day, make every hour in the day count." - Anonymous

From my point of view - the time is a factory, in existence - in two ways:

1. time is a perceptive idea;

2. time is a biological issue.

First of all, time is a perceptive idea.

Time flows in a way that is perceived differently by people or by the same person in various ways at different times, based upon our perception level. And in that sense, we really can't control it unless we can change our perception.

Perception is a factor of distance, expended energy, and size of the person's mental limits or entity in question.

Also, the time has no weight, scent, taste, consistency, cannot be seen (as an object)...

Second of all, time is a biological issue... our cells react to time in an irrefutable way that is determined by the chemistry of our existence as well as the wear and tear and recovery needed to be induced at a cellular level. 

Even atoms have half-lives which are determined by the decay of atoms just as cell time is measured by the activity of the cell.

I would like to consider valid this opinion but it seems to be impossible as long as I was taught to rely on time and space since the "cell" stage. I know that, for a while, it does exist the present and I'm aware of it (not touchable but lived for a split second) but my mind is not able to separate the past from what I am, what I did, or experienced and I cannot perceive a future (time) because this is always unknown and constantly changeable.

We can only partly control our actual actions or make plans, but cannot change the past or influence much the future.

We have only the present time that somehow flows along my paths in life, and certainly, is irreversible no matter what we do or believe.

Based on an issue brought up by Einstein's "General Theory of Relativity" and actually proven via experiment and observation - time, measured biologically and atomically, actually slows down when traveling at higher speeds. Time, though, is most readily affecting us via our perceptions, our mental awareness of its passing. And that is something that we really have no control over most of the time.

I'm sure he was right and it was proven that, at a small scale, this can be applied in various domains of science (medical researches, aeronautical experiments, and probably many others more or less brought to public acknowledgment).

Thinking at this now I wonder if that "Philadelphia Experiment" was real or just a myth, cause if it was real, this certainly can change humanity's perceptions and actions. I have no idea if such a thing is good or not/ dangerous, but it may be a step ahead for human being evolution.

"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." - Albert Einstein

On the other hand, the single 3 or 4 moments when we're able to catch a fraction of time are:

- whenever we're creating things, especially material ones (cause they last and we can see/ have them a long time after that moment passes) and immaterial ones (in our daily interaction with other people) - "touchable things" that last for a while.

- the amazing moment of capturing fractions of time through photography (somehow a paradox, the cause is catching on the material surface, a unique moment in time with the whole it's beauty and ephemeral passage, including thoughts, feelings, expressions, angles transferring perceptions and emotions)...

- "Capturing the nanosecond"...

- And I may add the illusion of "freezing" the time... in an hourglass. :)

"Time is free, but it's priceless.

You can't own it, but you can use it.

You can't keep it, but you can spend it.

Once you've lost it you can never get it back." - Harvey MacKay

I love hourglasses. The shape, the dynamic of the falling sand, the representation of time... so, what means time to you?