Kill time before it kills you

"You mustn't kill time, boys, you must cherish it. Seize the day! Can I have some change to go get loaded?"
--a bum gives some advice to Bart and Milhouse

Time is a heartless bitch-goddess. Oh, how I loathe her.

Did you hear that? That's the sound of your arteries hardening. Don't eat too much birthday cake; gotta watch that cholesterol. Good morning, Sunshine! You are now one day older and closer to death. Have you crapped you pants yet? Not since you were an infant, you say. Wait. Time will fix that. Tick tock. Tick tock. Don't sleep. NEVER SLEEP. Sleep are those little slices of Death¹. Think, instead. If there was a way in, there must be a way out. Surely, you've realized that by now.

My advice: Kill time before it kills you (and then tell me how you did it).

If enjoying yourself is "killing time", then the implication is that by working you somehow save its life. Procrastination is demonized when it has to do with work, but encouraged in the field of leisure. But if you're caught in a meaningless job (from your perspective; somebody has to sweep the floors), then what is that "saved" time really worth? Money? What's its use if you're supposed to work whenever you're not eating or sleeping? Money can't buy happiness; one needs to get an enjoyable job to "buy" happiness, or "waste" time to "rent" it.

But in this country, looking for a meaningful job is discouraged in favor of looking for a job that pays well. In fact, this has been taken to such an extreme that most people think that a job that pays well is a meaningful one. You can't be happy unless you've got enough cash to be a good little impulse buyer and support the big corporations. Thus, the only time that's well spent is time spent earning as much money as possible.

But the stress! Filling your time with nothing but work and chores (yes, the weekend is a time for relaxation in theory, but in practice it's when you get the chores done) is bound to burn one out. Seeing a spare moment as something to fill with a responsibility is a torturous way to live. Thus, if you see drudgework as the only way to support time's life, then you have to kill time before it kills you. Read a novel. Play a video game. Participate in the sport of your choice. Watch that Star Trek marathon. Meditate. Whatever suits you. Just because an activity doesn't directly benefit someone else doesn't mean it's worthless, despite what society might lead you to believe.

Try it sometime. You might even like it.

You're going to die eventually, anyway. Personally, I would rather be killed by time than by a madman with an axe, or even a car or something. I have been hit by a car. It hurts like fuck-all. And while I do love trauma, I don't like the thought of it happening to me. Nope, give me the death by time anyday. Besides, I just want to live long enough to get killed by time. More likely, though, it will be cancer or something.

In short: Time is not an immediate threat to me. Live and let live.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity, anyway...

So, me and Velocity were talkin' the other day, he brought up (what else?) the death of Faith. "What'd you think about the recent killings?" He asks me. I was pretty sick of hearin' about how Faith was dead, but the unexpected plural threw me. Killin's? There's been more?" Heck, if anyone should about these things, it should be me.

"You didn't hear? Someone got Integrity. She was found dead in a wormhole a couple parsecs from here." Well, I happened to know Integrity died of natural causes, but there was no need for Velocity to know that. "And Volume says that no-ones seen God around lately either. And there's even a rumor going 'round that Matter may be next. He's been having some trouble on the sub-atomic level." He lowered his voice, "I suspect poisoning." I hadn't seen God around either, but I suspect that no-one was really looking hard. And it was going to take more than quantum mechanics to get rid of Matter. Velocity is a great guy, but he's not the brightest star in the galaxy.

"Space says that no-one would dare go after physical beings, but I say anyone who could take out God could certainly handle Matter. Or you or me, for that matter." He was dead wrong about that, but I saw no reason to correct him--in fact, I'd do the opposite.

"If I were you," I told him, "I'd be worried. If Matter goes, you and your brothers will be next." For all his paranoid ramblings, he hadn't thought of that. "In fact, if I were you, I'd get to work and try to stop this right now. Get them before they get you, you know?"

"You know what? You're right. And I think I know exactly who's doing it" I tried to look disinterested. "Time! She's always pushing us around. We have to do everything her way. She'd off anyone who got in her way! And Time never did like God. He challenged her authority.

Dead wrong! Perfect. Velocity's one of those physics who can't do anything on his own. Trust him to get everything wrong. "And Time's upset over that rumor about her and Space--didn't you start that?" Time to change the subject. "So what're you gonna do about it? You can't let her keep picking us off one at a time."

"We'll do something alright! Let's go get her now!" Got him. "I've gotta stay here and keep things on track, but you and your brothers have the run of the whole universe, don't you? Why don't you guys round up some of the bigger metaphysics and go after her?"

Sure thing! It's a good thing I fingered out her plot in time!--And thanks Technology, I couldn't have done it without you!" And with that he shot out into the night.

Ha!
They never suspect the little guy.

According to common language, we stand with our face to the future, while the past is behind us, and that's how most people experience it. The future lies in front, the past behind of them. For dynamic personalities the present is like a ship, breaking the waves of future on the rough sea; for people who are more passive, it's more like a raft, calmly floating along the river of time. Of course there's something odd about both visions, because if time is movement, then it should move in a second time, thus creating an infinite amount of time-lines, - something that tends to displease philosophers.

There's another odd thing about one who has his future in front and his past behind of him. It'd imply, that all events in his life already exist in the future, that they'll reach the present at a certain time, to eventually get to rest in the past. But there's nothing in the future, it's empty, one can die the next moment, thus such a person would stand with his face to emptiness, while it's behind him that there's something to see, the past, as conserved in the memory. That's why, when the Greek talk about the future, they say: 'Oh, what is yet behind us?'.

When I think about time, like I sometimes do, I don't see the events come from the future and go via the current to the past, but from the past they developed themselves to the present, on their way to a future.

I can't 'kill' time, for time is an (illusionate) continuum. But with my consciousness, I can tame time and control it. I have more power over time than it has over me.