The Fascinating Thing Called Time

If you read my upcoming short story collection “Beyond The Grey Line” you will understand how fascinated I am with the concept of time. Most of the stories in it explore time in different ways and questions the singular pattern of time that we think is sacrosanct. So, is time really singular? Does it really have a distinct pattern?
Commonly the answer would be yes. It does follow the points of a clock, doesn’t it? However, if one delves a bit deeper into the concept of time then the subjectivity of it really comes out to the fore. Let’s assume that you do nothing for the next hour but just sit quietly in one single place, wouldn’t time then feel a little stretched to you? Wouldn’t the clock seem like it’s moving a bit slow? Now let’s compare that same hour with the hour after that where you need to accomplish ten tasks. Now the clock will seem like it’s moving at a frenetic speed. But is it moving faster in this hour than the previous one? Absolutely not. Time is moving at the same rate as it always does, it’s just your perception of it that has changed.

We are governed by time, our lives are defined by it. From how old we are to how we plan our day to how much we sleep or when we eat, it’s all based on time and yet we hardly stop to think about what time really is. It’s not tangible, it can’t be touched or felt, but it can, if the effort is made, surely be comprehended. But how do we comprehend time? And why should we comprehend it? The answer to that is simple: because our existence depends on it.
Life moves forward in a linear fashion. We can’t physically go back to the past or to an event that has already occurred but our minds can and when it does so and conjures the images of it into our conscious, we call it memories. Memories share a direct symbiotic relationship with time and one cannot work without the other. Our minds need to have a grasp of time for our memories to serve its purpose. In the same way, it is essential for memories to exist for time to sustain itself in our conscious. To give an example: for a person suffering from amnesia the time that has elapsed in their life bears no significance to his conscious because even though time exists for them in their past it is inaccessible due to their lack of memories.

Now let’s move away from the past and look towards the future. Does time already exist in the future? If yes, then why can’t we readily access it from our present?
The answer to that might be a little more complicated. We know time as a progressive linear element, it’s like a carpet that unfurls itself beneath our feet as we put each step forward, and if we go by that hypothesis then it can’t exist in the future because we haven’t taken those steps yet. However, being abstract as it is and connected with our minds, time can exist beyond the clutches of the present through our thoughts of the future. We do think of tomorrow, right? We do make plans for the future. Let’s say, you want to meet a friend tomorrow. You call them up and fix a place and a time to meet. Now that time has already started existing in your mind even though it’s in the future and hasn’t materialized yet. We are accessing the future but in an abstract fashion and, if you think of it, then it’s pretty natural since time in itself is abstract.
And like time, our dreams are abstract too. Dreams deal with time in very interesting ways. When we dream, our thoughts, memories, wishes, desires, and reality are all at play at once. In our dreams, we exist in a different dimension altogether and sometimes in that dimension our past, present, and future coexist together. They stand parallel to one another because our dreams are not constrained by the linear pattern of conventional time but are boundless and omniscient. In your dreams, you could be face-to-face with a dead relative or holding your unborn child in your arms. There’s no limit to where your dreams can take you since they are not adhering to the patterns of time but are creating patterns of their own based on your conscious or subconscious thoughts. However, they still have to correspond to the living duration of your being because time exists for you as long you yourself exist. The place beyond that is inaccessible for time and, by extension, your dreams.

But what isn’t inaccessible, at least according to science fiction and pop culture, is travelling through time. Now, we all have to agree that time travel is largely an efficient tool for scifi storytelling but isn’t feasible in reality – at least not yet – and is mostly disregarded by the scientific community. However, I believe that while we can’t travel through time physically we do it subconsciously everyday in our daily lives. Think of it. All of our dreams and regrets and memories and ambitions are either linked with our past or our future and never with our present. So whenever we are thinking of an event that has already occurred in our lives or an event that we are planning for or striving for, we are actually letting our minds travel to that particular time period whether it be forward or backwards. We are travelling through time, albeit at a very subconscious level.

That’s the reason I find myself fascinated with time because though it moves in a cycle it’s never constant. It can be quantified but can’t be contained. It can be comprehended but cannot ever be fully understood. As a writer, time gives me a lot of material to base my stories on. I can really play around the subjectivity of it and explore its different facets. I think, it would be safe to say that I am an ardent admirer of the fourth dimension.

(c) 2020 Niladri Mitra

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