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"You don't have to swim faster than the shark, just faster than the guy next to you." - Anonymous
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Time
Sometimes, when things get sufficiently weird, subtlety no longer works, so I'll be blunt – lately I’ve been feeling the wheels of time grinding heavily against me.
There are so many things I want to do. So many things I did that I want undone, looking back with hindsight. However, the same time that I took for granted in such a carefree manner in my callow youth now hangs heavy over my head. It is true – time stops for no one.
What is Time?
The dictionary defines it as “a non-spatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future”.
Another definition is “the continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past”
Science fiction calls it the fourth dimension. Civilization recognizes time as the established rule that dictates when civilians eat, sleep, and work. In short, the concept of time means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
Still, any description of the clock must begin and end with that ridiculous projected working life, that insane, heroic, incomprehensible span of time during which it is expected to serenely tick
Most humans are preoccupied with the here and now. Albert Einstein, echoing the sentiments of other deep thinkers of the modern era, argued that one of the biggest challenges facing humanity is to "widen our circle of compassion" across both space and time. Everything from ethnic discrimination to wars, such reasoning goes, would become impossible if our compassionate circles were wide enough.
But what does time mean to the artist? Independent timelines exist in the arts.. Whether they realize it or not, artists, writers, and designers have the unique opportunity to deal with time on an entirely different level than those aforementioned.
The artist creates visual hierarchies that guide the viewer’s eye; the writer tells a tale that spans a year, but takes mere hours to read; the designer arranges elements to modify the viewing/reading experience, influencing the viewer/reader to turn the pages faster or slower.
In this sense, creators are, in fact, controlling time by allowing the viewer or reader to move fluidly through imagined or invented timelines that exist within a given media. However, artists are rarely conscious of their instinctual modifications of timing.
Timing attempts to explore and document a few of the instinctual manipulations and realizations of time through dissection of visual and textual timelines existing on the two-dimensional page. It can be used as a simple guide to time manipulation, or enjoyed as an insight into the instinctual time travel that exists within the human mind.
So what has all the above gibberish got to do with me personally? I’m feeling old at 47. Feeling the deterioration of my body with the passage of time although my mind’s still sharp.
With advancing age in humans the risk of dying increases. I’m not afraid of dying though. Just not achieving whatever I want before I bow out for good. Not saying whatever I want to say to whomever it needs saying to. Not having closure.
How much power resides in that deceptively simple idea? Ask yourself in a week, or a month, or next year.
