Time — having just passed my 90th birthday, I find myself spending an unusual amount of time thinking about “time.” We don’t have to consult the dictionary to talk about time. Nevertheless, I consult the “ancient” college dictionary still on my shelf, the Second College Edition of Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language.
That worthy publication uses nearly an entire page of small print defining time as a noun and transitive verb in multiple contexts and uses. Early on, it reads “the period between two events or during which something exists, happens, or acts; measured or measurable interval.” In that familiar context, time can be relative. And it can even be somewhat mysterious and play tricks on you.
For example, we have all noticed that, as we age, time “goes faster.” It still takes the earth the same duration, within microseconds, to encircle the sun. But that period of time seems to go faster as we get older. The practical answer partially explaining that dilemma is that each passing year measures a smaller portion of our total life memory, hence diminishing its relative impact. To a 10 year old child, the past year is 10 percent of their memory — actually even more considering he/she doesn’t remember the very earliest months of life. In contrast, the past year of a 50 year old person is about 2 percent of their life and memory. As we age, each succeeding year is an ever smaller portion of total memory and, presumably, brain capacity.
To a teenager serving a military enlistment, three years is endless. Although I intended to go to college, “if I ever get out of the Corps,” that imagined destiny was far, far into the future. But it eventually occurred. In contrast, I have been retired for some 21 years but it seems like only yesterday.
Professional shrinks provide a psychological explanation along the same lines. As similar events are repeated over and over, they seem to return faster. To a child, “I can’t wait for Christmas; will it ever get here?” To the parents, “We just finished buying, wrapping, and opening presents; cooking Christmas dinner; cleaning up the mess, and here we go again.”
We think of a given interval of time vastly different as we age. We of the “Silent Generation,” born during the Great Depression, think totally different about a three decade period than a high school student of today. I was in Kindergarten during the Pearl Harbor Attack in 1941, in elementary school during the war, (to us, “the war” is WWII), and in high school during the Korean War. When, as high school freshmen in 1950, we listened to teachers talk of their experiences during WWI, that was ancient history to us, even though it was just a bit more than three decades past. Just as three decades past to a student in 1950 was before their memory, so three decades past to a current student is also way, way back. Three decades back takes a current 14 year old student born in 2012 back to the end of the Cold War — ancient history to the kid but merely a recent event to those who lived during it. Even 9/11/01 is “way back” to today’s students while it is fresh in the memory of older folks.
Japan is now our strongest, most loyal, Asian ally. Those of us who were kids during WWII still recall that White flag with the big red zero as a symbol of terror. With time, much changes.
Having been born in 1936, I confess to feeling that the world has left me behind. It’s an understatement to say that farming today is different than when I remember my dad doing some of the farm work with horses. Between 1936 and 2026 is a period of 90 years. Going back 90 years from 1936 takes us back to 1846. Did farming during 1846, years before the Civil War, change between then and 1936? Of course — totally different. So one should not be shocked at change between 1936 and 2026.
I should not be shocked, but still am — cows fed individual computerized rations? Giant combines instead of that grain binder that I once rode and operated? There are still a few — very few — of us alive who participated in harvesting oats by cutting it with a binder, shocking it, followed by neighbors participating in a threshing ring. As kids we started by driving tractor at threshing time. I “graduated” to the job of pitching bundles before our threshing ring disappeared, never to return. To echo the slogan of Monroe’s National Historic Cheesemaking Center, it was “an era that was, that will never be again.”
Webster’s lengthy definition of “time” includes “…every moment that has ever been or ever will be.” That raises questions that can’t be answered even by the most brilliant astronomers and astrophysicists seeking answers to the formation of the universe, its past and current motion of galaxies and stars within, and its possible end. There are theories that it all started with the “big bang,” the universe estimated to be some 14 billion years old, with our solar system being some 5 billion years old.
What existed before the beginning of the universe? Was there anything? Even just empty darkness is something, or maybe nothing? Some theorists even contemplate multiple universes even though the search for the outer edge, if there is an edge, of this one is still going on.
Does the estimated origin of the universe mark the beginning of time? Did time not exist before that? Was there a “beginning of time”? Will there be an end of time? Those questions are among the incomprehensible.
Maybe religious practitioners have, or at least believe they have, answers. But they are known for disagreement to the extent that wars have been fought over such matters.
Let’s go back to time being relative. Stars ultimately expand and swallow up their surrounding planets. Before that, as the sun expands, life as we know it will end on this planet. We have more immediate concerns such as the consequences of global warming — no it is not a hoax. Extinction of species at a faster than normal rate of evolutionary change is indeed something to worry about. Micro plastics have been detected everywhere; mountain tops, ocean’s lowest depths, foods, and in the human body.
A more immediate threat is nuclear annihilation through war or human error. So far we have been incredibly lucky that sufficiently cool heads have prevailed. Both Soviet and U.S. leaders got us through the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. On September 26, 1983, Soviet Army Col. Stanislov Petrav risked his career by refusing to immediately report an incoming missile warning up the chain of command. He correctly suspected that an alarm that the U.S. had launched ballistic missiles was a false alarm.
Will cool heads continue to prevail?
Time! As mysterious and incomprehensible as it is, we still have some left. What matters is what we do with it.
— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears monthly in the Monroe Times.
