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Even before the time of science, humans had a profound inherent understanding of time. How an entire life can flash before a dying man’s eye, while to a loved one, the last breath is over in an instant. How it seems almost possible to freeze the last fading rays of sunlight at the end of the day by sheer force of will, only for them to suddenly disappear at the slightest moment of distraction. How a second transforms into an hour while preforming tedious tasks, yet seems to fly away at the first hint of amusement. It seems exceedingly strange and makes perfect sense all at the same time. Calm and quiet, a gentle giant trudging on, unbeknownst to the creatures it carries with it. Impossibly immobile and yet faster than a hummingbird’s heart beat. Such is the nature of time, a fundamental truth we have never truly been able to explain.
As humans evolved however, they grew curious of the world around them. They dismissed these changes in time as slights of the mind or tricks of the eye. They decided it simply was not possible and began to establish rules. Such rules made them feel safe, wise. They paraded around truths they themselves could not understand in hopes of shielding themselves from the much scarier reality. Slowly, these theories, laws, rules and predictions began to overlap, contradicting each other and creating more confusion than there had been to begin with. So they trudged on, weaving intricate stories, each more complicated than the next, arguing and bickering over theories eventually both proved wrong by yet another. And still they refused to turn to the much simpler answer. Something so banal and beautiful, they could not bear considering might be real. Such a plain design, so unlike their theories they so prided themselves on, instilled fears in the hearts of even the most acclaimed scientists. And when they could no longer turn a blind eye to the testimony before them, they stilled, broken and confused. All their life’s work had been for nothing, since all along, the answer had been right in front of them. In the ecstatic laughter of their children playing outside and in the following frozen instances of time as they tripped and fell over a rock. In the deafening sounds of great waterfalls and in the way despite the noise, the water seemed to move sluggishly slow over the edge, lazily splashing on the rocks below. How airplanes seemed to move slower than the cars on the highway as they streaked through the sky, though still managed to arrive hours earlier at their destinations. And only then did it finally sink it. Only then did they accept they would never truly understand, and once they did, their eyes opened and they were no longer afraid. And they welcomed time, for all its mysteries and imperfections. Because despite being mistrusted, insulted, picked apart and ignored, time stubbornly chooses to give us a gift everyday; the freedom to experience it in our own way.