I waste time. The sentence written with disgust and weariness means exactly what it means. That time is one thing in this world that exists as a permanent itch that you can choose to scratch or just pretend it doesn’t exist. Musicians have sung about it, philosophers thought about it and preachers preached about it. Even in Einstein’s world of relativity time can be only perceived as a constant. And I waste it. So logic has it that I was useless and purposeless for those few minutes I choose not to scratch.
But there exist something more profound more complicated that makes time so abstract.
For if my life is limited on this planet then so is my time. Then wasting time means wasting precious seconds of existence. For those of us who think man (wait the feminists are protesting) or humans were created for a purpose, the precious seconds wasted could dent a hole in the overall picture of gods plan. Or if you are an atheist, it’s a hole in life’s plan. But if human life were purposeless just a dialectical circle of chaos then there ceases an importance of time.
I may have wasted my time writing this. But if intimate reflections like this are a waste of time then I choose to waste my time happily. That's me.
1 comment:
yes, it is something I have thought about...and yes, it would seem that if life were meaningless, time would cease to be important...I think its interesting that there is an unspoken understanding in the world that time is important (and thus, life is meaningful)...obviously, there is something in us all that by default, assumes the inherent importance of time...it is things like these that drove me to believe in God...this evidence of 'hidden design' that underlies our lives...
I also think it is easy to get confused between wasting time/inactivity...after all, when we sleep at night, we are inactive, but the sleep is essential for rest and recuperation...so, we're not wasting time...but if one sleeps more than one needs to, this could be considered 'wasting' time...this points to a physiological basis for defining 'time wasting'...I think other evidence of this physiological basis can be found from the fact that we all enjoy being productive (opposite of wasting time)...again, this is obviously because the feel-good areas of our brain are activated when we are being productive...other 'physiological' reasons against wasting in general(not just time wasting) are that muscles can atrophy when we dont use them...and brain cells get pared when we dont use them...causing diseases like alzheimer's disease...thus, it seems to me that there is something within the fabric of the way the world works that rewards being productive...and penalises being slothful...I think this again points to the inherent 'meaningfulness' of life...
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