A Blip In Time

Time.

Few words evoke more emotions, for me. The ever-present mystery. We swim in time every moment of our lives, and yet we don't know what it is. Why does it move? And why forward? Why can't we pause or turn back? Call these questions silly. But zoom in close and they astonish. At every moment, each action, each breath, each flicker of thought instantly slips from happening to happened. Permanent. Frozen. All you've done, all you'll ever do. It all echoes through eternity, forever, the instant Now becomes then.

My mind plumbs here often. Time as relative. Time as predetermined. Time as bridge between identity and consciousness. Time as paradox: precious as Bitcoin, treated like a gum wrapper. As long as life lets me, I'll never stop pondering this four-letter marvel.

That's why today is strange. Today the system glitched. The whole country leapt forward an hour. Our clocks skipped a cycle, all because some senators 100 years ago said so. At this, no one blinks.

But look closer. Today's your best chance to sneak a glance at time's arbitrariness, time's fluidity, time's wild mystery. 5 o'clock is 5 o'clock, except for twice a year, when suddenly it's not.

Daylight Savings is deja-vu. A brief what was that? and then carry on. A quick splash of the fundamental weirdness of reality, followed by a yawn and some breakfast, and then yet another Sunday.

But on this Daylight Savings, let's give the fabric of reality her due. May we use that missing hour to ponder time as a concept. Physicist Carlo Rovelli calls time the fog you watch from a mountaintop. From the summit you see distinct puffs, what's the problem? But trek back down and things get screwy. Crisp cloud becomes soupy mist as you close in. Soon you doubt if the cloud exists at all.

Carlo means entropy and Planck Lengths and quantum foam. I'll leave the physics to him. But quiet moments and focused thoughts melt the cloud for me, too.