Sunday, December 31, 2006

Time

I'm a time addict.

I think I always have been. I calculated at an early age in elementary school how old I would be when the year 2000 occured. (27) for those counting. Now at age 34, time still has very real meaning. I could go into all of the cliches about how time is moving faster as I'm growing older (which it is) but that wouldn't be helpful in explaining how very real time is for me.

I visualize time. I keep track of where I am in a year by visualizing months on a horizontal loop sort of like a Mobius Strip. I'm standing on January looking across the loop to June and July. Somehow January always feels like "south" to me (probably having to do with the Sun).

This concept also applies to weeks (Sunday is opposite Wednesday/Thursday) and to the day, although daily time is visualized in a vertical loop that spins...sort of like the big wheel on "The Price is Right."

This is how I go about keeping my mind organized. I use calendars and my Palm Zire 72 to keep events in order, but when I'm organizing in my head this is how I see time.

With further reflection, I recognize in myself how obsessed with time I am. I was really happy working for Delta Airlines in the early 1990s because everything had a timetable. Planes left, and they came in, many times late, but at the end of the day...they all left. Time was completed. I had picked up habits of examining my watch every 15 minutes to check what time it was. It wasn't until years later when my friend Christopher finally told me to quit checking my watch that I even noticed the habit.

Today I don't even wear a watch. Although this is because my previous watch would only hold a battery charge a couple of months before it ran down.

My favorite escapism into fiction is time travel. Not only Doctor Who, but also the Issac Asimov tale of the Foundation Trilogy takes place over thousands of years.

I suppose with the new year it always affects me to be more responsive to time.

I think I need to buy a new watch.

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