Time and Again

This is my one thousand, nine hundred and ninety eighth posting to ‘Bill’s Log’. Two more, will bring the grand total to two thousand.  The drafting of a single article can take anything from half-an-hour to six hours, on average about two. If I become really immersed in a subject, my ramblings, research and re-drafting can result in me spending more time. Time is a requirement, and as it happens, I have penned and published four articles on the subject of time; which would suggest that somewhere in my psyche, time is important.

By comparison with other words in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, time has a longer description. If you check the links below you can see how vast the subject is. Searching for answers to the question, “What is time?” will reveal a multitude of ideas and suggestions.

Time is both subjective and objective; for example,  if I’m a prisoner ‘doing time’ in jail, days and nights can seem awfully long, but if I’m enjoying  my honeymoon at an exotic location, days and nights can feel very short indeed. If I’m World Champion sprint runner Usain Bolt, and I’ve been beaten by Justin Gatlin at the Diamond League meeting in Rome by one-hundredth of a second, over one hundred metres, I’m not at all pleased, but I have to accept the fact that I was not the fastest.

Time is valuable and it should not be wasted. As I wait at traffic lights I bewail the loss. One particular traffic light between my home and Southend causes me a lot of grief. Sometimes the queue before the lights can stretch for a quarter of a mile. Time spent there waiting can be up to six minutes with only a dozen cars passing at a time. Time and again, this has happened. You’re getting the picture. If I were to do the calculation, I guess I would have spent weeks, not days sat in my car at that spot - thankfully, much of the time was in the company of my wife.

Yesterday, my Bible study was focussed on Chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes, the opening sentence of which, states, ‘To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven’, and it goes on to list experiential times and moments we humans might have in our lifetimes. These are times of joy, times of sadness; times for building, times for embracing, times for silence, times for war and times for peace.

There is much wisdom in this book which ends with the words:

‘Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:

Fear God and keep His commandments,

For this is man’s all.

For God will bring every work into judgement,

Including every secret thing,

Whether good or evil.’

CAVEAT: There will be no time to change a single thing. 

Links

Time

http://bills-log.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/time.html

Thinking Time and Working Time

http://bills-log.blogspot.co.uk/2006/04/thinking-time-and-working-time.html

More Time

http://bills-log.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/more-time.html

Quality Time

http://bills-log.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/quality-time.html

New Year 2013 (An article about time)

http://bills-log.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/new-year-2013.html

Time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time

Is Time and Illusion?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-time-an-illusion/

The Peak Time for Everything

 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444180004578018294057070544

Time Regained!

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/jun/06/time-regained/

TimeTicker.com

 http://www.timeticker.com/

What is Time? One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate Theory

 http://www.wired.com/2010/02/what-is-time/

The Official US Time

 http://time.gov/HTML5/

Greenwich Meantime (GMT)

  http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.co.uk/

A Brief History of Time Measurement

 http://nrich.maths.org/6070

Ten Methods of Measuring Time

http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/10-methods-measuring-time.htm

Measuring Time – Anderson Institute

http://www.andersoninstitute.com/measuring-time.html

Usain Bolt beaten by Justin Gatlin in 100m at Diamond League

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/22768581