Marking Time

Why worry about the past? Or the future, for that matter? There will never be another time like NOW, says Paul McDermott.

We spend half our lives taking it for granted and the other half being obsessed by its nearness. It is our most precious commodity, more precious than any earthly riches, and yet more unattainable. We have tried to store, stack and accumulate it like wealth.

It's time.

Our generation is losing it faster than any other. Look at your hands - you can almost see it slip through your fingers.

But, friends, it can be stopped, if you just believe in science. Have faith and we will all live forever. If we can locate a gene that controls the ageing process we might be able to stop the clock and elongate life - a few years at first, but before long we'll double our life span. We are about to take our first step towards immortality and the achievement of gods.

The trouble is, I believe it won't happen in our lifetime. We'll get close. It'll be the last thing we hear as we're unplugged, the last thing we see before the numbing spasm of a cardiac arrest pulls us away from the TV. "In Denver today, a 25-year-old man has just become immortal..."

Scientists claim it's just around the corner. But if the buses don't run on time, and the mail can't get through, how on earth will we change our life expectancy within our own lifetime? Everyone knows how these things get caught up: religious organisations insist on ineffectual moral debates, someone puts the formula in a post-pack, the government passes a law restricting experiments on humans.

We get lost, waylaid, sidetracked. And the next thing you know, your kids, who'll live twice as long as you, won't have the time to visit your grave. It's those damn kids, the ones who aren't even born yet, the ones who won't respect their elders, who'll benefit from this.

After all, immortality is a young person's game. They'll be able to enjoy it. Imagine being able to hang around the mall well into your 40s.

It just means we missed out again. We've become the generation of losers living in the century of loss. What did we get? TV, microwaves, cellular phones and the A bomb. They're going to get nanotechnology, regenerative gene therapy and eternal life. We will probably be the last generation before time becomes inconsequential. But this is why time is so precious to us. More precious than any previous generation or any generation to come.

We have bought this time with the sweat of our brows and the work of our hands. We have paid for this time with our day-to-day suffering. Now we intend to use it in the best way we see fit. Those two days out of seven, those four weeks out of 52 that we refer to as "quality time". Not just any old time, not like the inferior time we waste at work, but real premium time, the best of time.

That puts a fair bit of pressure on time to come through with the goods. How often have you set aside a specified period of "quality time" only to find that it didn't measure up. What you thought was "quality time" quickly became "Now I have you alone for a minute, I'd just like to tell you what a wretched, feeble excuse for a human being you are" time.

You're often aware of "quality time" only in hindsight, when you have the time to sit back and reflect on what a time it was.

It's a drug. You always want a little more and there never seems to be enough. We have all said it - "Give me more time." That's the problem I'm facing here - I'm running out of it. I'm approaching the deadline. I have to send this off, there haven't been enough hours in the day, I've got other things to do. (Someone asked me for a bit of "quality time" and I'm frightened they'll tell me the truth about myself.) There's no time like the present, but at present I don't have enough.

-Paul McDermott

Site maintained by VellaB.