The Meaning, Value and Relativity of Time.

This post could take some time!

Here's a conundrum. You ask me, "What time is it, please?" I consult my Rolex and tell you precisely what it shows. Instantaneously the time I told you is past, lost and gone forever. Is this an example of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, having something to do with quantum physics?

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I went for lunch with her delightful sister. She, of course, is my sister-in-law. She lives with her partner; I suppose that makes him not-quite a brother-in-law. He has sons by a previous relationship. Let's suggest that they might be my almost-step-nephews.

Got that? Good!

Now, reading this has cost you nothing in financial terms, but, so far, I have expended five gratuitous minutes composing it. In a previous professional life my time was valued at £1.00 per minute; that would be £5.00. In a more recent life-episode, as a purveyor of light bulbs earning the national minimum wage, my minutes were valued at something less than one penny each. Was it worth getting out of bed?

To continue, the conversation with my quasi-relatives at the aforementioned luncheon included the enquiry, "Well, what do you do?" An existentialist might simply have responded, "I am." The elder of my two almost-step-nephews (not an existentialist) responded more interestingly, "I trade in international minutes."

Pause, lasting several standard seconds, for curiosity while you study the graphic below:



Now, ponder the following question: I know that there is interplanetary variation in the length of a year, but is there a global geographical variation in the duration and value of one minute?

Now, there's a thing. Here's my almost-relative who buys and sells TIME. No, I don't mean Swiss clocks and watches. He really meant the enigmatic fourth dimension of the universe!

After some circumlocution it became clear that my almost-step-nephew is involved in communication technology. This fortunate and charming individual drives an expensive motor car, affords the petrol, enjoys exotic foreign holidays and has a pretty fiancee. (Now, what distant almost-relative will she become?) Clearly this trade in something totally ephemeral is highly profitable. He sports one of these elegant timepieces:

Where am I going wrong? How can I engage in this enterprise? Are international minutes recyclable? What is the carbon footprint of these minutes? How are they stored, packaged and distributed? Do they have a sell-by date? I have been unable to sell any of my spare moments on EBay. Would I be better off describing those moments as 'international minutes'? After all, unless a Japanese minute is shorter/longer than a European one, you can use them anywhere in the world.

Now follows some circuitous philosophy. If time didn't exist, nothing would ever change. We would all suffer even more boredom than you, dear reader, if you've got this far, are now experiencing. I would have no birthday to celebrate. I wouldn't be 58 years old. Indeed, I would not have been born. The question, "When was...?" would be meaningless, as would the notion of tense of any verb. Dr. Who would be out of a job, and you would not be required to learn history at school. In fact, NOTHING would ever HAPPEN and that adverb 'ever', derivatives thereof and other words like 'now', 'then', 'last', 'penultimate' and 'next' would have no meaning at all, whatsoEVER!

My considered conclusion is that time is a cunning strategy of the Almighty whereby we are all called to rest every seven days. Admittedly, most take no notice of that, but time still ensures that sentient creatures are spared the tedium of nothing ever changing, whilst (there's another time-orientated adverb) benefitting from the glory of planned obsolescence.



PS. The lunch was delicious!