The New Year marks a passage or change in time, according to a calendar. A year is fixed, being the amount of time it takes for our planet to completes a revolution round the sun, yet some people believe that time itself is infinite. On that subject, Stephen Hawkings says, “All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning . . . We are not yet certain whether the universe will have an end.”
We talk about changes in time, the movement of time, how fast or slow time seems to go, but actually time does not change, nor move, and is neither fast nor slow. It is only through observing and experiencing change that time is apprehended, and yet, without time, there could be no change.
The concepts of past, present and future provide us with a more general way of dividing time. David Kalupahana, in his translation of Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, says that according to Nagarjuna “Time, as experienced, cannot be analysed into three water-tight compartments as past, present and future.”*
Chapter Nineteen, “Examination of Time,” consists of a mere six verses, in which Nagarjuna maintains because everything is related to other things, time is only a dependent set of relations, not an independent entity. Yep, time is empty.
If time exists depending upon an entity,
how can there be time without an entity?
No existent entity is found to exist.
So how can time exist?
That’s one philosophical view of time. Now, time in literature, poetry and song is another matter.
For instance, I once read a science fiction short story by Samuel R. Delany with the very cool title Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones. As I recall, it has nothing to do with the subject of time, (I probably should reread the story to make sure I’m right about that, but I haven’t the time).
In Hazy Shade of Winter, Paul Simon lamented, “Time, time, see what’s become of me.” Nowadays, he sings, “Hair, hair, I can’t see what’s become of you.” Time may be empty but it’s also weird. As some men get older, they lose the hair on their head and start growing hair in their ears. I tell you, there is no end to the indignities of aging.
The Rolling Stones had time of their side. Dr. Frank N. Furter did the Time Warp. Jim Croce had Time in a Bottle. Chicago wanted to know Does Anybody Know What Time It Is? Cindi Lauper wrote, “If you’re lost you can look and you will find me, time after time.”
And finally, a San Francisco band of the 60s, the Sons of Champlin, believed “It’s time to be who you are”:
It’s time for New Year’s Eve, so whatever you do tonight, have a good time.
* David J. Kalupahana, Nagarjuna Philosophy of the Middle Way, State University of New York, 1986, 277-78