On the Conservation of Time

Where does time go? Where seems an awkward qualifier to use in discussing time, considering that where deals with physical space and time deals with, well, time. The creation of recorded time and dates and the distinction of past, present, and future control our perception of time. One might say time has passed but does time really pass? Perhaps life is like the sand in an hourglass, the top the future, the bottom the past, and the narrow stream in the middle our consciousness of its conversion. Time is therefore the name given to this conversion. And Life in general follows this metaphor, only with more sand. Where does time go? We capture it. We trap it in pictures, paintings, books, films, magazines, stories. We capture it and make it accessible to the present. As technology has developed, we have been able to capture more and more of it. First only through speech. Then writing. Then television. Now the best scientists estimate that we are able to capture around one percent of time as it passes. Even then, they admit, we are only able to capture it temporarily. Where does ninety-nine percent of the time go? Clearly it never happened.

The conservation of time. Our conception of time is nothing more than a conception. Time is not past, present, and future. Time is the instant. Time is the now. It does not pass. It is a focal point through which motion is permitted. The present does not include five minutes ago or five minutes from now. It does not include one second ago or one second from now. It has no range because it is not a duration. Time is conserved because it is continually the same instant. The past does not contain time. In fact, there is really no such thing as the past. This is because nothing exists except in the now. The past is only its effects on the now. The future. How wonderful to think about the future. So mysterious, a loose word to describe the indescribable. The future. What will soon be the now. Of course it is nothing. Nothing more than ideas in your head. It doesn’t exist. All there is is the now, the universe is constantly made new.

Of course this is why we have no perception of time. We live in the instant because there is nothing else. So on reflection of my day. Where did the time go? I had a large Thanksgiving dinner. How long ago that seems now. A number of hours, sure, yet it seems much longer. And my birthday last month? I scarcely remember it. Actually, at this moment, everything I think of seems as if it were hundreds of years ago. A different life even. I am restricted to the now. Everything else is nothing but what I manage to retain.

So there are two things. The instant. And me.

Everything else there is to say about time is fundamentally derived from these two.

Of course, this is just what I think.