"What is Time?"

meant post this  days ago luckily nobody has claimed it so far but im going to do the peacock clock

I like the way you separated your essay into the different phases of life because I feel that our perception of time is not the same for each stage.  I think it is really interesting how you described time as something that we can control.  At first when I did not understand the validity of the point, especially because in class we have been talking about how uncontrollable time is.  But then when I read about how your time and time management was being controlled by your parents and others, I understood what you meant in your opening argument and I completely agree.  I felt the same coming to school here and now having the strange feeling of control over what I do and when I get to do it.  It is a different interpretation of time, us having control over it instead of time being the controlling factor, but it is so relevant, especially at this point in our lives.  How should we spend our time now?  Doing work, staying up late, hanging with new friends, finally getting to sleep in for as long as we want.  These are all elements that are influenced by our control over time.  I thought that this was very interesting and a new viewpoint of the concept of time that I had never considered before.

I think your take on this assignment was really unique.  I love how the intro brings you into your perspective and really sets the tone for the rest of the paper.  I can really see where you are coming from in the rest of the paper because of the beginning dialog.  Your paper was also very relatable.  You spoke of a passion that you have had and how your memories of all the experiences during cheerleading really bring you back in time.  I know that I also have many of these types of memories that bring me back to some of the happiest and influential times in my life.  It is so interesting how the simplest things like the first line of a song can trigger so many different memories and emotions.  Triggers like a song that is still played in the present can be a great connecter to time and experiences from the past.  Your paper was really a fresh interpretation of how time has influenced your life and you used an element that is so true for most people that I did not even think of.

One part of your autobiography that really stuck out to me was your explanation of how quickly time can pass, as well as our methods of dealing with the dwindling of time. When you referred to your decision to attend the University of Richmond, I couldn’t help but to smile. Immediately I was reminded of the deadlines of the countless essays and applications that were approaching ever so quickly. So much had to be done, yet I always found myself procrastinating or making up excuses to push off the assignments as long as I could. But before I knew it (and I really should’ve known), putting off the assignments was the last thing I should’ve done. The amount of cramming that I went through was, to say the least, stressful beyond belief. I thought that I would’ve had an abundant amount of time to get through these requirements, but my perceptions seemed to have tricked me. Perhaps it isn’t time that has been tricking me, but rather my perceptions of it that have.

I found your argument concerning our differing perceptions of time a very interesting and relatable topic. I feel that every single person has different perceptions that are profoundly affected by one’s own emotions and experiences. For example, in your Microeconomics class, there may be an avid student who has a gravitation towards such concepts that may be experiencing his or her perception of time in a way different from you or anyone else. Maybe he is so interested in the content that those fifty minutes seem to have flown by in an instant, while your perception may have made the class seem slower than ever. I encounter phenomena like this almost every day – though I may not always notice it. Our subjective time constantly fluctuates as the hours, or rather our perceptions thereof, pass. This remarkable concept never fails to keep me interested in the nature of time.

I like that you take experiences that most people can relate to and decide to focus your paper on those instances. You also bring up a point that we are all aware of, yet tend not to truly think about in depth- the point that moments that we are enjoying seem to fly by, while moments that we dread seem to slow down. It’s really quite a sad and depressing reality. It seems cruel that the moments we cherish and love so much seem to be the shortest moments that we live. Shouldn’t the time we are enjoying last longer so that our happiness can be extended? We yearn to be happy in life, yet the moments that bring us such joy are minimized by our perception of time. And when we think about the reverse of this concept, being that the moments we are not enjoying seem to linger on hours, it only becomes more depressing. This world would be a much happier place is roles were reversed and the exciting moments in our lives seemed to last for longer, and the insignificant moments felt shortened.

First of all, what an incredible piece of writing! This autobiography goes a great job at expressing what time means to you. I loved your description of the basketball game and the connection that you made between your game-winning shot and the speed of time. It is definitely a relatable example as I can imagine that many people have experienced moments in their lives when time seems to be moving in slow motion. I also loved that you shared important and sound advice as to how people should go about their lives. It’s true what you said- life is what you make of it and when we sit around doing nothing, we are only wasting precious time that we are blessed to have. The choice to either embrace each moment or mindlessly let them slip away is the determining factor as to whether we live a good life.

Time: The Past, The Present, and The Future

            Each person perceives time differently, and as time passes each person can perceive the same event differently than the time before. Any moment of time is constantly changing from one millisecond to the next millisecond and therefore, what is time? The passing of milliseconds to milliseconds? The passing of the present? Or the reflecting of the past that was once in the present? The past and the present are very connected and the past affects the present and the present affects the past memories. The present is constantly changing with a blink of an eye. This makes it hard to pin point what the present actually is. If it is passing by so quickly then we cannot have one specific moment to say that that was the present because it is now the past.

I am always living in the present and therefore, what I am doing in a specific second of time is the present for that second. However, as soon as that second of time is up, then I am living in a different present time. It is hard to say that a second of time is the present time because technically that one second of time is made up of milliseconds of time. We can say we are living in the present decade and that is correct. However, part of this decade has already become the past and part is still the future. Two years and eight and a half months are already in the past for this particular decade. We still have seven years and three and a half months left in the future of this decade. However, you can still break that down into the amount of days that have passed already in this ‘present’ decade, and also the days that are still to come in the future.  Time can always be broken down into smaller increments.

Time can continuously be broken down into smaller amounts of time. Time correspondingly accounts for the present time to be broken down into smaller amounts and measures of time. This measurement of time is hard to make the present seem like a real thing. The present is relative to a specific moment in time. That specific moment is hard to break down into a specific amount of time.

If the present time is always passing then the past is continuously growing. We are constantly gaining the past. If I think about my life, then I have more past times than future times and many more past times than the present time. If the present time is so small and is broken down into specific milliseconds, then why, when we think about the past, are we not thinking about certain milliseconds? Why are we not able to break down the past into the same milliseconds as the present is broken down into?

The consistent breaking down of time into increments in the present shows that the past is not based upon the same rules of the present. I am not able to think of my past as a specific millisecond of a day in a certain year. That being said, I can not think of my past without putting my present and current bias and thoughts into that certain memory. My memories are based upon my present thoughts: my past is based upon my present. If I think back to a memory of eating blueberries as a child, I will think that I was being forced to eat them. This is because I do not like blueberries now, in the present time. Emotions and present feeling toward a concept or event causes distorted memories of the past. However, I could have very well loved blueberries at that time and just have grown to dislike them. I am not sure because my present thoughts are reflected in my memories of the past.

This also works the other way around: the past can affect the present time. If in the past I have fallen off of a bike and remember being on the ground with a bike next to me while I was crying, then my present thoughts on that memory will take me away from riding a bike. This memory may have been when I was seven years old, but that one moment in time that used to be the present time and is not is the past time, is affecting my actions of this present time. This will most likely affect my future time as well, since my future will become my present time at some point and then my current present will be my past in the future. I will still have this memory of my past and will be able to refer back to it in the future.

Therefore, this difficulty in breaking down the measurements of time and deciding what the past is, causes a struggle in living life. Everyone always says “forget about the past and live in the present.” However, this is extremely hard to accomplish because in order to live in the present, you have to think about the past. That being said, to think about your past you are adding your present thoughts into it and therefore thinking about your present while you are thinking about your past. The future is just another element to add to the confusion of what time actually is. We are not able to figure out what the present time is specifically because we are constantly moving and we do not stay in the present time for more that a millisecond, or even smaller than that. The past is constantly growing and we continuously change from the past to the present to the future again.

I am going to do “The Writing Boy” automata