What even is time?

I read the other day that scientists have no idea how to define time, scientifically speaking, and that, despite our linear narrative instincts, time is probably a great big mysterious illusion that we cling to in order to assert some kind intellectual control over our own utterly bewildering existence. I know, quite a confronting idea to be scrolling past, over your morning cup of coffee. And, let me tell you, it didn’t get any less confounding as I read on (quantum mechanics is quite complex, it turns out). The article did suggest, though, that not only is time an illusion but it’s a subjective one, which is why the time you fell over on stage at school assembly lasted for a thousand years but nobody else seemed to notice time slow down (they didn’t use that example, but I feel like they would have if they’d thought of it). 

The other thing the article suggested was that if we could, for instance, remember the future, we wouldn’t be so anxious but we also wouldn’t be so ambitious, so determined to figure it all out and shape our future for ourselves. We wouldn’t be nostalgic, we wouldn’t grieve, we wouldn’t hope. Which is to say… life would be stripped of almost all the meaning it currently has. Suddenly, to me, a human adult pretending to understand quantum mechanics before I’d even had my breakfast, our attitude to time seemed kind of adorable. We think time is happening to us, but maybe, also, a little bit, we’re making time up as we go.  

Public Service Announcement: it’s your time. Do whatever you like with it.

 I recently made myself sit in nature without the assistance of any devices, and completely without purpose. Doing that for a bit can really shift the dial on your own subjective sense of time. I watched a whole lot of ants operating in what seemed like total fast forward, belting around lifting and rushing and climbing and I know ants don’t make any sound but it seemed noisy down there. I saw a mud crab too, later that day (or was it later? What even is time?). It was edging sideways, sifting through sand and micro-whatevers, eating stuff maybe? Sensing things? Storing information away for later? I slipped slightly on the rock I was standing on and it corkscrewed its way down into the mud for a few moments, hiding, still, waiting with its legs semi-visible in the afternoon sun, until my shadow shifted and I moved away. Time, in nature, re-calibrates, regardless of who you are or what you think the future or the past might be. 

I remember the future all the time, by the way. Daydreaming, an underrated pursuit in my opinion, sometimes brings to mind a future me (with, by the way, a tidy house and a backyard full of friends I am always having over for dinner) who lives happily in a creatively fulfilling, politically responsive benevolent utopia featuring, frankly, inventions like: donuts but they’re good for you.

Time is there to be spent, too, by the way. Just because time is happening doesn’t mean you must agitate to push through it. Remember, it’s probably an illusion. The whole linear narrative thing is most likely a lie we tell ourselves, and we know this (I like this fact) because scientists (including whatever a quantum mechanic might be) go to work every day in pursuit of an answer to the question of whether time is a meaningless lie we tell ourselves in order to assert meaning into our frankly confounding existence. Imagine how hard it is for those guys to plan ahead!

And while this is confronting and confusing and possibly not true, it is, I believe, at least in some ways, a comfort. If time is a lie then sinking into it, letting it stretch out, enjoying some moments like an ant and some moments like a mud crab, letting your version of time happen around you, is not a moral failing or a waste. It just is. You’re in mud crab time for a bit. You’re sifting through things, sensing things, feeling the sun on your back.

Public Service Announcement: time is there to be experienced. Sometimes it’s important to experience it the same way other people do. Tuesdays are labeled Tuesday so society can function. Sometimes though, time can ebb and flow. On those occasions, resist the linear instinct if you wish, and go with the pull of the tide.