Mike Healy's Blog

Time. Thinking about it is a trip. According to Mick and the boys, “It’s on our side”. I’m not so sure as it seems to be fleeting quicker than any fairweather friend ever did.

Time, what is this dimension that we are inexplicably woven into, that when we exit its’ grasp has quilted the very fabric and story of our life?

Aristotle speculated time is simply motion, and that motion could be slower or faster, but not time. Time is consistent.  Einstein came along with his theory of relativity and proposed that time is subject to the laws of physics and can in fact slow down or speed up depending on the expansion of the universe.  Their conclusions, factually accurate or flawed, are interesting yet matter not, for their past.

So what is time? Spend some and think about it. It is, as we know all too well  finite, and as such, should be thoughtfully spent.

Time is a measurement of change ,an illusion really as only the present truely exists.  The future is only our way of speculating what will be based on calculated measuring of the past. The present, while it exists, is gone before you even have had a chance to actually think about it.  The next syllable, the next key stroke as I write, shoves the previous keystroke and syllable into the past.  The past is just that “past” and can only exist in the present as a memory.

It’s only quite recent, relatively speaking, that technology has enabled us to record change as it occurs in “real time”, so we can relive the past in the present.   Not long ago, the only way to remember time past was neurological. Today I can listen again “live” to Brian Jones play the harp on “The Spider and the fly” recorded some thirty years ago.  I can “relive” a Pavarotti performance of “La Boheme” in the present.  I can feel anxious again, this very second if I want to, as I watch Flutie on utube fade back and launch what became the most infamous pass in football history.  I can still feel today, by looking at a photograph, the toothless wet kiss my grandmother always gave me when we got together at the Thanksgiving table.

Time creates and enables. There is a “first” for everything, which only logically leads to a “last”. Having kids you can remember their first breath; having parents you will never forget their last. When you’re in love you remember the first kiss, when you lose someone you love you longinly remember the last.

As you go through life every fleeting second of the present should be cherished and spent with those that you are willing to let have the privilege to shape and mold your future.  The present paves in hard top the road ahead, parse it out carefully, never wasting on whimsical.  Remember as you “spend time” so you shape and mold not only your life but that of those around you. You bring people in and out of other people’s life’s do so carefully This temporal life leads to eternity, the absence of time and as such the absence of change. If we take with us those around us as some believe, I want to be with the right people.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and  we “look forward” to it. as we should. It’s a “good time”. Always one of my favorite of holidays, not just for the food and drink , buy rather because it’s the choice we make to spend the present with family ,and those we love and cherish, and for that day we are mindful of the fact, and thankful, for being together in the present.   We “cherish” because we know over time ,we will lose, for the very nature of time dictates that nothing lasts. The people around our table come and go. Life in time is about change, about loss and yes additions to those you surround yourself with. Time robs us of some, yet rewards us with others as it relentlessly marches on. William Michael Healy, alias “Wild Bill”, Billy the Kid” and I’m sure Maria Healy has come up with dozens others, Billy did not exist last year, yet yesterday he was celebrated at a few feasts ; a new cherished addition to such a huge family.

Thanksgiving was a good time in Lowell. I saw Maria’s video post on Face Book. Yesterday was time with family that I missed and never will get it back. The memories are not mine, and never will be. Mine were different. The fabric of my life different than it would have been had I been there, as it is different also for those I care about.  But “time” as some genius discovered has its effects on single malt scotch, which makes times lost like this tolerable.

Today is Black Friday, Time set aside for folks to spend ,waiting in line to save money they earned over time for their time on crap they don’t need.  Talk about “moments that make up a dull day”. The only way I could waste so much of mine, would be making time stand still with a bong rip. Now that is a great idea.  After all it logically follows, If you could make time stand still, then it mgiht actually be more on your side.

Well, “The time is gone, this song is over,  Thought I’d something more to say”.