"Where does the time go?"

Where does the time go? Rather, could it be that time is more like a river that flows on endlessly, forever trapped between the dawn and the sunset, never really here but yet never really gone either? It’s almost like the concept of space: ever-present but constantly changing, constantly evolving in its endless journey towards a destination unknown. And what about the idea of black holes, those unique space-time entities from which nothing (not even light) can escape? And can time actually evolve? How many “times” might exist at this very moment? According to Octavio Paz and others, in addition to the standard “time”, there exists a personal and/or subjective time, a time in which the normal laws governing time (rather, those laws generally accepted by the postmodern human society of the 21st century) cease to exist, a time in which one second can last for an eternity, a time uniquely shaped by the original experience of each individual. And what do we call the countless treasure holds of time that exist within our own collection of memories? Is this really time, or merely an echo of the passage of time? And with the advent of TiVo, it’s not too difficult to imagine a similar situation with respect to the real world, not just the world of television. I mean, if we can play back live events just milliseconds after they’ve happened, if everything that happens becomes recorded as past history almost instantaneously, doesn’t it just make you wonder when we’ll be able to “rewind” history (if just for a few minutes) to actually replay the recent birth of our first child or the first time we had mint chocolate chip ice cream. Then we can jump back into the normal stream of time and rejoin the rest of society, whose lives (as well as our own) are continuing to be played out in real-time.

Note: This was written in September 2005 and thus before the release of Adam Sandler’s movie Click.