Ten days ago I had cataract surgery on my bad
eye; the fifth surgery on my eyes in the last eleven months and, hopefully,
the last. My opthalmologist tells me my retinas
will need monitoring but, for now, everything is good. With my bionic eye, I can see right through
womens’ clothes, which isn’t always a good thing, by the way! I've observed that people my age look way better with their
clothes on.
Five short months from tomorrow, I’ll be flying to
Toronto after my last official day of work to cycle in a Gran Fondo with my good buddies, the Over the Hill Gang. It’s hard to believe. It got me thinking about the subject of time
and what it means to us at various stages in our lives.
The drawing below illustrates what physicists
call the ‘arrow of time’. I don’t
pretend to understand it, but it’s a nice picture!
Wikipedia defines ‘time’ as a dimension in which
events can be ordered from the past through the present and into the
future. Time is also the measure of
durations of events and the intervals between them.
A physicist by the name of Sean Carroll
explains the relationship between the passage of time and something called
entropy. ‘Entropy’ is defined as a
measure of the degradation of an object or system, sort of a gradual decline
into disorder.
We know that time has passed when a clean house
gradually gets dirty. We know that time
is irreversible; like not being able to turn an omelet back into an egg once it’s
become an omelet. Time is a measure of
the way we humans age. At this stage in
my own life, I call it ‘furniture disease’; that’s when your chest falls into
your drawers!
In my case, time has meant different things at
different times in my life. When I was
younger, I couldn’t wait to grow up: to get real skates instead of bob-skates;
to move from la petite école to la grande école; to graduate
from high school. As a young
adult, I couldn’t wait to land my first real job, to have children, and to see
them grow up.
But then things happened that reminded me time can go
by too fast: my Mom left us too suddenly; my children grew up too fast; I didn’t
get to spend enough quality time with my best friend, the mother of my
children; the interesting jobs ended too soon and forced me to move on to
something else.
I’m surrounded by people my age who can’t wait to
retire; they’re counting the days. I ask
them: “Do you realize that you’re wishing your life away?” I work with colleagues who are in poor health
and can’t seem to get their heads around the idea that quality time spent doing
something you like is worth far more than the money you make doing something
you don’t. I tell them that’s why I’m
pulling the plug in five months’ time. They look at me strangely.
As I prepare to enter the third phase of my life, le
troisième âge, I do so with a great deal of enthusiasm and
anticipation. Despite a bunch of eye surgeries
and two carpal tunnel releases in the last eleven months, my old carcass is
holding up quite well. I like to think
of myself as a well-maintained old car; the body’s got a few dents and
scratches, but the motor’s good!
Within my extended circle of friends are a couple who
are battling very serious illnesses. I
wonder how they define time, or if they even think about it. Maybe they don’t want to...
I’m at that stage in life when I’d like time to
slow down, so that I can savour every moment.
I’m well over my materialistic phase and into the experiential. I can’t wait to see the world and to knock
a few more items off my bucket list.
I figure I’ve got at least fifteen good years left and I can’t wait to
get started. Ah shit! There I go again!
