I had never really noticed it
before, but the clock face began to fascinate me as it had never done before.
The continuous path of it's shape being round and having no beginning or end. I
had always "seen" the clock as having a top and bottom though it has
no actual starting place. Flat and featureless. Not very interesting. Why was I
fascinated by it, then? The hands climb upwards at different speeds on one side
towards the top and fall down the other side at their unchanging speed towards
the bottom. It doesn't really have sides either. No uphill struggle or rush
downhill. Just round and round and round. Almost hypnotic in its movement. The
clock never hurries and has a patience that is remarkable. A clock never seems
to get bored, maybe because it is always busy. I still procrastinate. Important
things get put off as new things get in the way. Still getting it wrong about
what is important and what is not. A clock doesn't seem to care. It is always
telling me important facts, though never anything really new and it always
seems to demand my attention, though it never asks for anything. Occasionally,
it signals events, but cares not what I do, even if I act on its signal or not.
Where
do I exist? Now? Then? Later? Wherever I am at any moment the clock is always
in the present, an existence forever in the present, living the boring life of
a device that never itself seems to get bored. I am constantly moving in my
time between past, present and future. For me, time seems to speed up and slow
down and there is no consistency to it all. Sometimes it's too fast and then
it's too slow. Time is never "just right". The clock goes on. Round
and round and round. I may imagine myself to be in the past or future at any
moment in time, but I am always in the present. The clock tells me that. The
clock wouldn't lie to me, would it? How could it? It just goes on and on and on
and on. This clock seems to have total control over me, yet it does nothing
interesting. Perhaps it is this single observation that fascinates me?
I am
glad I am not a clock even though it is a remarkable device. A clock is also
very strange by going nowhere, yet never standing still either. It goes round
and round going to nowhere and showing all movements onwards and forwards. I
would not like to live in such a confined space as a clock, but then it is
everything from the beginnings of experience to the end of existence. Time may
go on beyond the end of time itself, but it has still gone nowhere. It's all
very odd and even though I watch time too closely, I always seem to be losing
it. Whatever it is, and it is always in the present, time can still record what
has happened in the past trapping events in time as it marches onwards going
nowhere. If I could free myself of time then, perhaps, I could have true
freedom.
Maybe
it is not such a dull life after all.
Louis Brothnias 2005