Time

From Seven

From the Wikipedia article on Time:

Time has been a major subject of religion, philosophy, and science, 
but defining it in a non-controversial manner applicable to all
fields of study has consistently eluded the greatest scholars.

So chances are fair that whatever you find here is going to be controversial.

Time is not Linear

We tend to see time as linear, like a fourth dimension. Our body and five physical Senses are limited to three dimensions making it hard to perceive time let alone to travel in time (we seem to have some limited ability to travel in space although we are always bound by gravity). But we actually can travel in time with our sixth sense, our Mind.

We can perceive time with our mind but we cannot move in it with our body. We are not moved by time either. Early Greek philosophers saw time as a succession of moments each of which is disconnected to all others.

to be continued...

Time is Cyclic

We classify, measure and deal with time in cycles of seconds, hours, days, weeks, months, years, lifetimes, centuries and then it gets kind of blurry in eons and such. Each of these classes are related to our physical environment and seem to have a linear character. But each in itself is a closed circle that iterates. The shorter cycles are like blinking eyes, breathing in and out, eating, shitting and sleeping. A week is already way more abstract in that it is a cycle of 7 days and nights. This will usually fill up our brain's volatile RAM (there are between 5 to 9 like things that we can remember at the same time, a week is a good middle of seven days).

Time runs Backwards

The Aymará (South American people) tend to look at time differently from the rest of the world. They do not look into the future but into the past. The past is ahead of them and the future behind. This makes a lot of sense, because we cannot look into the future but we can remember the past. The way of living resulting from this perception of time is very different to ours. The concept is thoroughly alien to us but it is worth having a try at understanding it a bit because it makes our whole outlook change. I am not saying that this way of looking at time is for better or worse but just very different.