Counters on a board of time

Is anything quite as accomplished at creating sequences, seeing patterns and quantification as humans? Heraclitus has convinced us that we can never influence a universe so perfectly in rhythm. We see paths where other creatures see none and logic where chaos reigns. Yet we are so schooled in calculus from an early age and it pervades so much of life, is it really possible to imagine what we might think without it? Perhaps it’s necessary to have these concepts for our very existence. Ptahhotep would surely say so, watching the sand slowly slide through the hourglass.

Our development has led to the moon and sun never dancing, but now forever separated by our time. There is not a moment for them to touch when we must keep to a schedule. The silk of our futures is no longer shadows and light, but rather the rigidity of the clock. A start, a middle and an end. What terrible perils await when the sequence is lost? Does the mind lose it’s willingness to conform? Are we at our most creative between 9 and 5? I doubt it. Precedence and Ecclesiastes would like to suggest that it is, as there is a time for everything.

So we have the towers of time looking over us. Each power that seeks to control has a clock neatly tied to them, the church tower, the office building and ubiquitous tickers of financial information. What perpetuity have we tied ourselves to with the bonds of time? One that lasts a life time probably.

Can we find perpetual peace some other way? Of course but then for peace to be perpetual in needs a time to define it.