Moving Beyond The Science of Time
On the power we have over our perceptions of time
A beautiful aspect of the human experience is that, to the extent that time is a construct, we have the ability to build our own narrative around it.
Part of time exists mathematically, as an aspect of gravitational force called space-time. We cannot change the fact that an hour in the center of a black hole would be eons on our planet. Likewise, time exists astrologically as markers for the location of our nearest star (and all the others,) the distance the earth leaves between itself and other planets, etc.
These aspects of time are concrete. There is no re-shaping them without a cataclysmic astrological event of some sort.
Part of time, however, exists completely within the limits of our own minds. That ticking clock in the back of our skull that tells us there is an ever-dwindling countdown toward doom. We use this as our motivation to settle down into relationships, take jobs that we hate to build towards ones we love, have children while we are able, and so on.
It is this aspect of time that keeps our focus on the future.
On this aspect of time lies a minor playground if we allow it. I’m speaking of our perception of time, which lies in a land outside of mathematical equations or astrological events. In short: it’s mostly made up. We don’t really have a choice but to make something up, however, since time (math and stars) does exist for real in complicated ways.
We have to perceive it in one way or another. That perception carries more weight than we realize, though. If time were seen as a simple journey with a final destination (death,) events would exist only to pull you forward towards that conclusion.
On Film
With this in mind, I have recently begun focusing on reframing my mindset around time. Previously, I had thought of time as currency to be spent. Everyone is given an unknown amount of dollars and cents at birth and you “pay up” every hour or so no matter what you’re doing.
One could “spend” time watching TV or helping a friend or cleaning up the Gulf after an oil spill or whatever. Some of these investments are wiser than others: nobody is questioning that one who is cleaning the Gulf is being more frugal with their “time dollar” than the one who is spending it watching television.
My issue with money has to do with the fact that the value of the dollar is in the thing you get out of it, not in the act of spending it.
My experiment lately has been working on viewing time as being imprinted onto film. There is still a limited amount of it and, when it’s gone, it’s still gone. But the time we spend is imprinted within us. It’s not gone after we use it. Rather, we absorb that time, allowing it to inform and transform our essence and personalities.
The act of giving our time to an event can have value in and of itself.
When I think of time as being a currency, I start to think that it is of no consequence to spend a few bucks on something I don’t need. But who wants to watch a movie that wastes valuable frames on irrelevant scenes not helpful to the movie as a whole?
That’s not to say there aren’t movies that have scenes of the hero getting high on the couch while watching the television. Some of my favorite movies have those scenes. The thing about them though is that the character always gets up and does something after.
He does this because there is not an unlimited amount of film and it won’t be an interesting movie if too much time is spent there.
On Time Travel
Unlike money, film stays with us after we’ve used it. We have the ability to travel back to those scenes we’ve experienced in our lives. We haven’t yet figured out how to do that with our bodies but we do it all the time in our minds. I can still remember the smell of my ex-step-grandmother’s house that I haven’t walked into since I was eight, for example.
I can still return to it. Every moment of our lives is a porthole into the eternal. A point of light on the infinite expanse, waiting to be returned to.
I don’t want to get the most pleasure for my dollar anymore, I want to get the most value for my scene. I want to film something powerful that I can return to. Scenes of peace in the present become sources of joy in the future.
This is not radical philosophy — I mean I’m basically saying do good, feel good — but this method of thinking has radically transformed my focus on every moment of my life since I began.
I have begun to view myself as existing as a small point on an infinitely large strip of film. This point — the one right now, five minutes from now, or thirty years from now — will be mine, forever. Beautiful moments become fuel, propelling us forward with the knowledge that they will be sitting there, waiting for us, should we run into trouble.
Filming these scenes gives us the energy to try and get riskier shots later that can pay off more, knowing we have those graceful moments to return to. In this way, it becomes possible to travel forward into the future as well. I can place myself in a better place emotionally, financially, and spiritually by planning out the future scenes of my life.
Obviously, life is improvised. But we can set up the right characters in the proper locations to produce results we know will be beneficial to the overarching story.
The Charge
And so we reach the point.
So what?
I’m not changing time by thinking about it differently. I’m actually changing a whole lot of nothing at all. And you may look at me and say that film is a preposterous way to think about time. Maybe you’d say that it is more like a triathlon or a deep water fishing expedition or like the CRISPR method of gene-splicing and you could have just as good a point as me.
Honestly, I think everyone should think whatever they wish on the topic of time but I would really beg of everyone to merely consider the topic at all. Because I think a lot of us spend our lives unaware of this power that we have to shape so much of the way that we think about our own experience.
Portions of reality are subjective and many balk at the idea of toying with the boundaries that have been placed over them. If one tries, however, they will find that it is quite malleable. These boundaries can be twisted and fashioned into tools that benefit our lives as opposed to tying us down to an inherited belief system.
I’ve been told “life is short” as long as I’ve been on this planet. I always took it to mean I had to get a step-on and get going on this whole trip. What I am realizing now is that life is actually as long as we make it. We have the opportunity to spend as much time within each moment as we should so desire.
Time restrains us in many ways but I thoroughly believe it doesn’t restrict us in as many as we believe.
I may be the only one that will ever get to see the film I’m putting together — in its entirety, anyway — but all the more reason to perfect it. After all, I already know what the audience needs.
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