Forgive me father

Forgive me father, for I have sinned. What a way to start a blog huh – but it has been quite a while since I last posted (and that was meant to be my start of a weekly post) so the road to hell is truly paved with good intentions.

So, here we are in 2006, Christmas has passed, the new year has been and gone, Valentines Day is just over the horizon with Easter looming up fast in the outside lane.

Kind of begs the question – where does time go?

Well, I’ve been giving this some thought and rather than take you through Steve Hawking's A briefer history of time, I thought I’d introduce you to (fanfare of trumpets)

Andy’s 3 phase philosophy of time.

Phase 1 – Historical Time
When looking retrospectively at anything, one’s perspective on time is always slightly skewed and, unlike certain rear view mirrors, things are often further away than they seem.

What am I blathering on about I hear you ask. Well. Look at this way – that newish DVD player that you bought 10 months ago develops a problem. Great, it’s only 10 months old you think to yourself, I’ll find the receipt and have it fixed under guarantee. You go looking for the receipt in your magnificent filing system (or the box you keep in the cupboard under the stairs), find the receipt and are flabbergasted to find that the DVD player is not 10 months young – you bought it 14 months ago and consequently it’s out of warranty. Now, why did that happen? It’s historical time, rushing away faster and faster behind you.

Phase 2 – Future Time
This is exactly opposite to Historical Time in that Future Time really compresses time and makes the future rush towards you faster and faster. Imagine the scenario – you are asked to deliver a document/presentation/report in 6 months time. Great, you think, you have plenty of time to do the research, create the draft, review your work, re-write a couple of times until it is spot-on. It conveys precisely the message that you are looking to get across.

Time passes – you look at your diary, the deadline is 3 months away and you still haven’t done anything. No problem, there’s still 3 months to go, that’s plenty of time.

Time passes – and blow me – the report has got to be in TOMORROW!

Where did the time go?

Phase 3 – Computer Time
Computer Time is in  a world of its own. It’s like you enter a time warp. You say to your partner that you are just off in to the office/study/bedroom/space under the stairs because you want to spend half an hour tidying up some work. Off you go at 7pm.

At 12pm you re-appear, partner is angry …..”What on earth have you been doing all this time?”

Confused because you are sure that you have only completed 30 minutes of work, you check the clock on the wall to see that 5 hours has passed. How did that happen?

Well – I don’t understand the psychology of it all but it really seems that the human mind has a weird way of managing time, and that’s without including Age Time. As you get older the years fly past like months used to, the months fly past as weeks used to and weeks are gone like days…and as for days, you blink your eye and its tomorrow already!!

Time is a wonderful thing!

That’s all for now, I’ll write some more soon, I promise.

Be good, be careful, be safe!