The Time Tragedy of 2016
One of my favorite films this year was a dark fairytale of sorts, about a young boy dealing with his sick mother in a small London town. In one particular scene, while she’s getting treatment at a hospital, the mother is talking to her son who still hasn’t yet come to terms with the fact that she’s dying.
It’s a brutal, tear jerker of a moment (the whole theatre was already a mess at this point, and I haven’t seen this many people cry in a film since Toy Story 3), but it ends with her looking at him and whispering,
“I wish I had a 100 years. 100 years I could give to you.”
The mother wants to give her son more time of course, an impossible task — something she knows is unattainable, yet she wishes for it anyway. And the tragedy behind the scene simple — that the most defining human characteristic that we share with one another on this earth is that none of us know how much time we have left.
This is a rather cruel joke in the grand scheme of things — and it’s a morbidly existential quality to share with another person, let alone an entire population of people.
It’s also one that this writer spends way too much time dwelling on. Pun intended.
Because this writer would very much like more time to read books and more time to see films and more time to listen to music and more time to see his friends and more time to talk to his parents and visit them at home.
But he also wishes that there was less time to read about the misogyny and sexism taking place in the world. Less time to read about the prospect of a terrifying future. Hell, even less time spent watching people use snapchat filters.
2016 has been the year where time perhaps moved a little too slowly (i.e. watching this election, which moves at a snails pace) or perhaps it felt dragged out because there was so much nonsensical noise from the mainstream media. My brain nearly melts now whenever I see someone watching CNN or Fox News or MSNBC. In the age where everything is read, reported and tweeted about till the sun comes up/down, the 24 hour news cycle has been a vicious reminder that time will never come to a standstill — it will keep going and going and going, without any rest. There will always be more news — however you define what that word even means now.
Meanwhile, pop culture continued its pervasive command of everything and everyone (I can’t go onto Facebook without seeing something about Kendall Jenner, a new Netflix show, or Hamilton still. Don’t know why), while also reminding us that in critical moments (or maybe this is God’s twisted sense of humor) that our pop culture obsessions with Reality TV can turn into real nightmares. And as a country, we are clearly uneducated to handle the outcome. Naturally, only time will tell.
This writer has battled with time often during his three years in Los Angeles. Living in a place full of so many romantics and artists — none of whom ever seem to get old or grow up. And that’s not a bad thing either. The struggle to battle time while being an artist is a very difficult thing to do in your 20’s. Your friends, in many ways, are also your competitors, and it’s only when they become successful do you start to look back on your age and begin to analyze all the things you’ve accomplished in the time that you’ve been here. To work full-time at something, have a real passion, all while growing up in a city so full of culture isn’t as easy as it sounds. But I suppose it’s when you finally learn how to combine all three that it begins to make sense (p.s. I still haven’t learned how).
And of course, the desire to stay young and reckless is a fantasy. Eventually time wins — we are forced to grow up and assume responsibility not just for ourselves, but for others, as well. For all the craziness that took place in 2016, this writer felt like he did grow up, even if it may have been against his will.
And dear reader, my fear of time and not living my 20’s to the fullest becomes smaller each day. This could change — I’m sure it will in moments or in months — but for now I’m just OK. I’m not great, but I’m not bad either. I often feel that my time would be better spent doing something more meaningful, something with impact.
I think back a lot to that scene in the hospital with that mother, staring at her son, wishing she could give herself more time on this earth with him.
And that, I suppose, is the tragedy of time. That despite never knowing how much of it we have left, we are always wishing, wondering and dreaming that we could have just a little more of it.
Reader, I wish I had 100 years. 100 years I could give to you.
