The roll of time
The sheer magnitude of time, as it ticks by relentlessly, is quite, well, to be exact, terrifying when faced in its nakedness.
I often notice, when I’m not busy, that in order to avoid the stark fear that comes with facing the moment as it is we, or at least I, resort to a variety of tricks to “fill the time.” I might eat something when I’m not hungry, work out, read, get on the internet (for the umpteenth time) to no apparent purpose.
And then I realize, the purpose in doing all this stuff is plain: avoidance of a direct encounter with the reality that is now, when there is no intermediary between me and the roll of time, or to be more exact, between me and the approach of certain death (which is coming sooner or later).
In these moments, there is no work routine to keep you busy, no friends around, no food, drink, exercise, reading, writing, internet, tv, radio, driving around, worrying, planning, traveling, dancing, sex, whatever.
No nothing.
Just you and time and the realization that without relation to life, meaning is not, but death is; that the notion of meaning in-itself could quite possibly be a fiction, and yet death will collect, for that incessant tick tick tick is clear evidence of the fact that you are the debtor and not the creditor; and that, interestingly enough, the only way to not simply “suffer through” this confrontation with rolling time and approaching death, but rather, to conquer it, is to get back into life, into doing the exact same things that before, you were using to avoid reality.
But now, something is different: you acknowledge reality and yet, in defiance, live life anyway.
And it is precisely through this act of defiant living, having confronted in earnest the certainty of death and the meaninglessness of a life devoid of relation, that we become free.
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