According to my alien friend from The Future Schmelnoz the Incomprehensible the only reason that primitive races like humans even believe in and attempt to keep track of something so abstract as Time in the first place is because in our early development conceiving of such a concept became a necessity just so we could all interact together on any sort of predictable basis, thereby forming what has come to be known as “society,” which of course allowed us to team up and protect each other from the sometimes violent and volatile forces of nature which might otherwise have nipped our pending development right in the proverbial bud.
Now I completely understand that what I just said may seem abstruse to some of you; hell, probably to most of you. Much like when I go using words like “abstruse”.
But it wouldn’t hurt you to open up a dictionary every now and then you know. (I know, like people even still own dictionaries.)
Or, like most people you could just shake your head, say to yourself, “This here is some weird crap!” and then go about your business LOLing with your BFFs and Tweeting (or X-ing or whatever the hell people call it nowadays) about that awesome Bacon, Gouda and Egg Sandwich you just had for Second Breakfast. Assuming you are a Hobbit.
But just so you don’t go away ignorant what I am really trying to say here is that what Schmelnoz explained to me is that the whole reason we think we have to keep track of time is so that we can all line our schedules up and make things like planting and harvesting the crops, or sharing collective meals, or meeting together to discuss business matters, more convenient.
Which all sounds just fine until you begin considering everything that we have necessarily had to give up in order to attain said convenience.
This whole conversation started when I mentioned to Schmelnoz that I was getting hungry and wished it was a little later so that I could just go ahead and eat lunch.
“If you’re hungry then why don’t you just eat?” he asked me. “And what does this thing you call ‘lunch’ have anything to do with it?”
“Because,” I replied, “if I go ahead and eat lunch now then I’m just going to get hungry again before supper.”
“And what does this thing you call ‘supper’ have anything to do with when you get hungry or why it even matters when you get hungry?” he asked.
“Because I guess my mom just pounded that into my head,” I told him. “She always said, ‘What do I look like to you—a short order cook?’”
“But is your mom here now?” he asked.
“Well obviously not,” I answered. “She’s in Florida with all the rest of the old people.”
“Then why does it matter when or what time you eat, or what name or label you give to your meal?”
I had to admit he had me stumped there.
And then he explained to me about Time and how it’s really just something we’ve all made up together and keep believing in even when the whole idea of it no longer serves us or its original purpose.
He say most Time Travellers stop even bothering to try to keep track of Time after a certain point because eventually they realize just how ridiculous the whole thing is anyway.
Hanging around with Schmelnoz the Incomprehensible can be pretty enlightening on a guy sometimes.
As for me, I’m still pretty new at this whole Time Travelling thing and there are definitely older souls out there who have been at this a lot longer than I have.
Just not very many of them.
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