Thoughts on time

I'm not really sure when this started, but I've had a fascination with time lately; time as perpetuity, time as 25 years of my life behind me, and time as just another dimension that can be abstracted from the linearity it appears to have. You can't really control time, but you can account for it. Time is never something you can ever start or stop, but you can escape from it; you can jump to different parts of it; you can imagine paths it never took.

I guess my fascination really started after I realized that 3 years have passed since I've been living in San Francisco.....  and I'm 25 years old with no sign of slowing down. While this may seem overly dramatic to those of you further along the timeline than I, it's just startling to see how quickly I went from 20 to 25 and what that means for 25 to 30 or for 30 to 40.

Regardless, when I reflect on the abundance of memories I've had since being out here - the trips to Tahoe, the bad decisions after midnight that turn into great stories the next day, or even the excruciating traffic on the 101 - I'm nothing but smitten in those three years. They seem endlessly filled with great memories. But time does change. Each of those three years has been distinctly different from the one prior or the one after. While some might argue there have been a few constants (like working at Google, friends, etc.), slight differences in perspective or circumstance fundamentally change the entire equation.

But all is not lost. This is where the peculiar nature of time comes in. So many memories - flashbacks to a previous time - carry sentiments vivid enough that they'll make you smile or laugh out loud, even if years have passed. Whether it's a shared cocktail on the beaches of Cabo with my family, or the sight of a friend huddled up on the couch with a 7-iron and a bottle of wine watching Glee, time holds no power over me from zipping through the past and reliving those experiences.

Rather than an inflexible object for which you have no control, time is really something you can browse through, jump to certain parts, relive others. You are still you throughout time. That doesn't change. Sure, what you are doing, who you are with, where you are - that all can change. But at the most basic level you're just at another point in time. You're still connected to all of the people of your past, even if it's only through these flashbacks into the past. Time and distance don't separate people. People separate people.

Even the future is an accessible piece of time. While it may not be the future that will happen, it certainly is a future that could happen. Even the paths of the past that did not come to pass are available to a wandering mind.

Time to go enjoy my Saturday night.