Another Meditation on Time

The equal markings and consistent tic of the clock teach us to think about the future as something added to the past. Every moment that occurs is a moment added to a series of equal moments. In this we regard time as a pile of beads consistently added to a string. So why does our experience not correspond? Why do we feel time is speeding up? Why does a year at the age of thirty feel shorter than the one at the age of three?

For us time is not equal because we lack proportion in our experience. The present is not a bridge between our future and past. It is always and forever our end. Every moment of everyday our experience of time is in constant completion. I've heard it said, “today is the first day of the rest of your life.” But it's more true to say “today is the last day of the life that we have lived.” Our experience of time is unrelated to what is yet to come. It's defined only in what has been.

Only by knowing the end from the beginning could we ever experience the consistancy of the clock. For only then could we come to a true sense of proportion. But because our experience of time grows in time we are continually remembering the past as longer than it is. Only God knows the objectivity of the clock. And it is thus thinking of our lives in terms of this instrument that we yet again claim to be Him.


Our time is not the clock and the clock is not our time. So instead of thinking of our lives like beads added to an infinite string we should humbly think of our lives as a pie ever-dividing, recognizing that our life is always coming to an end. The clock suggests we can look outside ourselves and see the future as it is. But a pie's continual wholeness recognizes the fullness of that which has been. In the analogy of the pie we see that each passing moment is shorter than the one before. And thus it accuratly reflects our experience. Time, for us, is indeed speeding up.