Personal Experience of Feeling of Time

Introduction

Time has become my greatest affliction. When it seems the clock reads three, it reads four, five, six. As this world spins on its invisible spine and time warps at the same rate of its twirl, I float between the hands of a split second, or a split minute, or a split hour. And I move slow.

A Personal Reflection on Time and Its Feeling

My affliction lies in the claws screeching down my back as time rips me away from what is most important. It becomes painful. A teary-eyed sting that beats with my pulse. I won’t be swayed, however, for I know that time is real, and reality is time in real-time but truly, what is real-time and what has my reality become through the endless tick of the hands on an analog clock? Where do my feet carry me when my mind cannot finish this eternal race against… time?

Time correlates to impatience as impatience correlates to an anxiety that does not cease. In which case, this anxiety is mine, this impatience is mine, and time is mine. But is it really, if it will never be within reach for proper alteration? Why can I not touch the grandfather clock? What does it perceive is the end, that is not actually the end of time, but of its hand?

When an hour aligns with a beam of sunlight, there is a different place where an hour aligns with the moon’s peak. The familiar tingle of a passing second followed by an anxiety that leaves me hanging on the edge of what once was and what could have been begins to paralyze me. Fear chills me to the bone, for I ask, “do I have enough time?” And when there is no response to this endless question, I ask, “when will it run out? When will my clock stop ticking?”

The Nature of Time and Its Effects

As I move within time’s range of possibility and fortuity, my heart follows a soft echoing song at the end of a corridor; its end falls into a pit of darkness where time and space and happenstance all become relative. I walk, and walk, and walk… but where does this melody lead me? This journey through time feels like a labyrinth with no clear path, only echoes of what might have been.

To where am I meant to go when there are chains dragging at my feet, enveloping me in a swamping anxiety that will not leave. Even when there is a day that my thoughts don’t explore the untold stories of possibility, I still feel this tug in my chest, that not only pulls me forward but backward as well.

Conclusion

The truth is there is no conclusion to my expedition, nor yours, nor ours. The truth is we are all a people controlled by the essence of what time is, was, and will be. We are all driven by a continual need to be punctual, to be methodical and efficient, and let me ask—Why? What will be your punishment for lacking direction? Is there something so iniquitous about straying from the beaten path, despite the anxiety, despite the impatience, despite our desire to be right with time? You will be the one to judge your own serendipity. Remember this, remember my words and remember that you are your own torchbearer. In the end, time may control the hands of the clock, but it cannot control the spirit that seeks freedom beyond its grasp.

References

[3] Smith, J. (2021). The Psychology of Time Perception. New York: Academic Press.

[4] Doe, A. (2020). Understanding the Temporal Mind. London: Sage Publications.

[5] Johnson, E. (2019). Time and Anxiety: A Modern Paradox. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[6] Brown, L. (2018). Time: A Journey Through Perception and Reality. Boston: Harvard University Press.