TIME is interesting. It was Saint Augustine who wittily said in his Confessions:
“[w]hat then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.” I am no physicist and the scientific study of time is not my expertise. So let me say an existential piece about it right in time for the coming of another year.
We live in a world where human activities are, in almost all aspects, quantified. I remember a basic procedure in school: papers should reach the teacher’s desk at the count of ten. This reality extends to cut-offs, deadlines, and daily schedules. Whenever we move we do so counting in terms of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. This is for the Greeks “chronos” or time understood in quantitative terms.
Humanity quantifies time to mark the milestones and transitions of life. Birth, marriage, achievements, and death are remembered in time. Time is helpful and necessary. It allows us to keep track of the so many markings without which earthly life would be colorless. But while time is practically helpful, it is sometimes (also) oppressive.
Think of two lovers who have been going deep in their relationship. Time however, pushes them to make a choice, that is, to translate their love into something legally binding. In other words, they are pushed to marry. But because one is not yet ready and the other cannot wait, the relationship ends unfortunately. And the popular line says it all: “the right love at the wrong time.”
Another example is “graduation.” Practically graduation is considered as a rite of passage. It is another milestone that indicates a person’s movement to a higher degree of maturity. But we know for a fact that many students who graduated say from High School are not yet mature for college. But because of time we force people to “mature” or at least believe and accept that they should mature, even though for now they really are not.
There is always a region or dimension in human existence that remains elusive of whatever chronological imposition we may think of. We need to remind ourselves that no matter what certain things cannot be dictated by time simply because they are beyond quantification.
To live a truly “human life” in a truly “human world” is the highest accomplishment in life which does not have a deadline apparently other than death. Authentic living is our goal regardless of time and even despite time.
Truth be told, authentic existence is a resistance against time. Becoming truly human is expensive; it is at the expense of time. It is common for example to say that “time heals.” Actually time does not heal. Obviously, time does not have the property to heal our pains. At the very least time is an element in the process of healing but only and insofar as it stretches the existential continuum. It is the person who decides to be healed, and time is simply needed in order to make decisions.
These are reflections that come to mind as we move closer to a New Year. Strictly speaking, that which we call “new year” is simply the end of another 365 days. It is a common thing among people to promise that they won’t continue doing certain things or, the other way around, continue the many good things with a much better resolve. For some, a resolution is nothing but a habit or a carry over of tradition.
It is not that resolutions are not useful or helpful. Certainly they are. What I find problematic though is the slavish mentality to wait for a new year before resolutions could be thought or uttered. If one would take a closer look, a new year simply means that the world has finished another revolution, that is another complete turn around the sun. Of course, symbolically it can be understood as another chance or opportunity to try. But why should we be beholden to this; why should we be stuck in a mentality of chronos?
Authentic existence, human growth, and hope are boundless. They flourish in time without necessarily being time bound. To be truly human, to truly live authentically that can happen, should happen whether there is a new year or none.