I love this time of year. Short days, long evenings; time to stay indoors and read a book. And with new year’s eve approaching also time to reflect on what has been and think out of the box on where to go next year. It seems the new year always brings new beginnings, new chances, new possibilities. Of course any other given day and time of the year brings that too, but new year’s eve is extra special.
Time, or should I say timing, is a strange phenomenon. It is really just an illusion. The only sense of time we actually have is the present, the very moment we live in; with some of those moments in life more meaningful than others, depending on how we remember them.
In our hectic consumer society ‘time is money’. We live by the clock to meet our challenges but do we really have a sense of time? Have you ever heard time fly by or seen it pass? Can time be touched? And yet it is so clearly here, determining our every move and shifting all the time. We may have an atomic clock somewhere in a vault in Switserland indicating the exact time, but again what does that involve?
All we know as humans in present day society, is that we have to keep up with time. When we’re distracted we lose track of it and may miss out on our moments. Time is a concept really. The only way it can be defined is by the degree in which we are willing to let go of the old and make way for the new.
It reminds me of Tarot card number 13, depicting a skeleton carrying a scythe, one of those curved blades at the end of a long pole, used for harvesting crops in the old days. In the Nan Yar -Who Am I cards I’ve dubbed this card transformation, as I believe life always goes on and always changes form; every moment of our lives, most of the time without us being conscious of it.
“Funny thing time is”, Yoda would say. For those unfamiliar with the little wise guy from Star Wars, what I mean to say is time is undefinable and yet it determines every move in our lives. Without it we’d be nowhere, so to speak.
But for now, I’m going to take some time out and wish you you a peaceful and content holiday season. Be kind to others, surprise them with a gift; make some thoughtful resolutions for the new year; think carefully what you want to do with your time then and most of all… give yourself all the time you need. For if you want to help make the world a better place next year, it is important to start by creating some time and space for yourself.
Ingrid Schippers, December 11, 2018
Click the card to read more on its meaning or draw your own card at the right of this blog.
The abridged spoken version of this spoken blog, features as end note on ‘Dutchbuzz’, the radio hour for Internationals every Tuesday from 10 to 11 pm on ‘Den Haag FM’ and can be found in the Programme Archive of the Dutchbuzz podcasts, dated December 11th, 2018.
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