Let’s try something together. For the next few moments, take a few deep breaths and try as best you can to clear your mind … just for a few moments.

I’m going to give you a word and would like you to make a mental list of the first things or images that come to mind.

Ready? The word is … time.

What came to mind? Perhaps Mick Jagger singing, “Time, time, time is on my side”? Or maybe it was some less-than-kind invective, such as “Stop wasting time!”, “Don’t let time slip through your fingers!” or “You should practice better time management!”

Time is not ours to keep, or waste, or manage.

What is interesting about these metaphors (and they are indeed metaphors rather than descriptors) is how much power they have. Yet, time is not tangible. You can’t really hold it in your hand or let it slip through your fingers like sands through an hourglass. It is not ours to keep, or waste, or manage. Instead, we must look inward to manage our very lives as a precious resource. In this way, we avoid being mastered by this intangible tyrant.

Sure, perhaps there were blissful moments that seemed at the time to last forever or painful moments that seemed to drag on interminably. But in reality, time doesn’t exist; it is nothing more nor less than the music that serenades the thousand angels as they dance on the head of a pin.

How your understanding of “time” has changed over the years?

Mankind has attempted to harness time since the beginning with devices like the simple yet highly reliable water wheel that echoed the natural and predictable pattern of night and day, the solstices, and the changes of the seasons.

In the 14th century we were finally able to master the technology that allowed us to “translate the continuous force of the [water] wheel into the visual principle of uniform but segmented succession.” (McLuhan, 1964) In plain words, we created the movement of the hands on the face of the clock, and with that, the ability for it to “tell us” time.

And only a few short centuries later, the advent of the digital clock, through its luminescent urgency, was able to “yell us” time. Today, through the incomprehensible technology of the smartphone, Google Glass, and talking time pieces that would bemuse even the great Dick Tracy, we are reminded of time, all of the time.

As I write this, my first piece for LIV FUN, I want very much for it to be meaningful. More importantly, I want it to be useful. So, once again, I ask you to clear your mind and think of how your understanding of “time” has changed over the years.

Do you remember when you were young even being aware of the passing of hours? Or did absorption in the activities of youth (playing, enjoying the company of friends, falling in love) create a sense of timelessness? When did you actually become aware of the importance of keeping track of time? Was it when you began school or your first job? Or counting down the days or months to a big event, such as graduating from school, launching your child, or being part of the passing of a loved one? How has your own aging been recorded … in the chronicle of changes of your body, energy level, or transition into this phase of your life? And now, as you witness and participate in the final years of the ones you love, does time seem to be slowing down or speeding up, and do you wonder how much time is left?

As I grew, I gauged the passing of years through the lens of the aging of my brothers and father. “When Kenneth is 20, I will be 13.” “When Stephen is 50, I will be 37.” “Dad and I both became fathers at 40.” “When dad is 100, I will be 60.” Well, Dad made it to 97, and now, at 58, I wonder if I will live that long. I wonder if time will be kind to me, how quickly or slowly it will pass, and whether I will make the best use of it that I can.

In my best moments, I let all of that go. I stop thinking about time and allow the minutes, hours and days of my life to flow effortlessly like so much water over a wheel.