Differences in time

For all of us time is of the essence, basically it is the lifeblood of our days. As the days go by so does the time that we are supposed to dedicate to making the choices that shape each individual's fortune. When to get up, what to wear, which road to take are top decisions that occupy mornings and somehow manage to spread themselves evenly throughout the day. And so, days go by, sweeping time away in their wake, and people are left with less and less time to make decisions, to make different choices.

Somewhere in a cafe. Two men are sitting at tables facing each other. Both of them are eating s small lunch, but the quality of it is different. In many ways, it is just as interesting as the differences between them. See, one of them has a plate filled with mashed potatoes, a large grilled stake covered in a buttery spicy sauce. A mixture of vegetables is sitting on the side of his plate, now and then pecked at by the bite of a fork. All this was sent down smothered by a large glassful or ice tea. Meanwhile, right in front of him, the other man was serving himself from dish of rice, meat free, drinking his fancy cup of coffee. His lunch was sparse, all traces of meat had been removed from the start and that was how he liked it. Mens sana in corpore sano, that was his motto when it came to how he managed his body's upkeep. Yes, lunch indeed was a different experience for these two characters.

Each time a choice is made the nature of the universe twists around and out of its treat bag presents each chooser the consequences. Oddly, fate stays true to one rule in specific: each action has a reaction. But one cannot deny that emotions and human nature tend to personalize each of these choices and consequences, that each person has a different scale of what is important and what fails to make an impression. In the end, all choices affect how a person grows because it brings their possessor face to face with a challenge that shapes the things to come.

Each of the two is dressed differently as well. If one were to run into each of them in the middle of the street they'd have a completely uneven impression of the caliber of person that they are. Taken only by appearance one could swear that they were at opposite poles of the social spectrum, if not the universe.

Clean shaved versus a somewhat trimmed goatee; one comes from careful grooming while the other is the result of a rushed stop in front of a mirror before rushing out the door. Fashionable thick designer glasses versus a pair of old fashioned plain bronze-colored spectacles; one belongs to a world where the now is all that matters while the other spreads an aura of class and aesthetic taste belonging to another decade. Business suit versus an outfit reminiscent of the old Indiana Jones movies; uptight smugness rolls off in waves from the suit wearer while a wave of calm cools off all those who approach the one clad for comfort. One lives in a world of appearances where the rules are written by others while the other lives in a world where the only opinion that matters is his own.

No matter how small or how significant a choice is, one can never skip the phase where time sits down with us and spends away a couple of its own ideas, that which people might consider minutes, helping us come to a decision. At the end of this brainstorming session, where ideas are tossed around and predictions about possible outcomes are sketched, each person sits back and, whistling admiringly, chooses to go with the best case scenario that he or she developed with time. Time is our consultant, the one that we look at for advice or for a sign of encouragement at the moment in which we can't simply come to a decision.

For a few moments let us pretend that each of these men is known to us. Each of them has been our friend for the last couple of years, they shared their dreams and expectations with us, we know of the days when they were disappointed with the cards that life had dealt them. Thus, it is known to us that one of these men is a professor while the other is a businessman.

Well, better said, one of them is a part-time professor of literature. He spends his days writing and talking to people of all ages and cultures since he never knows where inspiration might come from. For years now he has been completely dedicated to what he considers his grandest project and now he's getting near the moment of its completion.

This man built a whole new world within the pages of a book while submerging himself in real life. The professor-creator dude is the victim of a constant Peter Pan syndrome. Despite the fact that all the years he has spent on the road, as well as teaching and writing, have changed him, he is not worried about it. As far as he's concerned all change eventually is good change.

The only constants in his life are friends, wit and all the small things that make life grand. That's just the way in which he sees the world, for him there is no point in cataloging every little thing he runs into. His friends belong to different age groups and are involved in just as many fields of activity. You may ask how he defines himself in report to the world and the answer is simple. He's just the eternal wisecrack that tires to brighten the lives of his dear ones.

The suit, he is the eternal entrepreneur. His purpose in life has no connection to the arts, but rather with maximizing opportunities and getting as much as he can out of life. At the end of the day all that has happened in his line of work was that a few more sums of cash changed hands and he ended up well off, at least on that day.

He doesn't have a clue about what tomorrow will bring him despite the fact that his day is organized from top to bottom in a little black notebook without which he'd be lost. His entire life is dictated by the small neatly writ pages which contain an accurate recording of the events of his life. However, despite this almost total dedication to his work, he never forgets his friends. They are the ones that make life seem interesting when it feels rotten, as well as the ones that keep bringing him down to earth each time he begins to forget where he's coming from. For short, they are his anchor to a better version of himself.

Unlike the professor, he never has created anything that didn't have a tangible purpose. However, he is still involved in the creation of what he considers great things. You see, money has not changed who he is because he always considered it good for only one thing: spending it with friends, making people happy. Thus he became an artisan of opportunity, using something that he had to give others a chance at getting what they have always wanted.

How does he define himself in report to the world around him? Simple, he sees himself as a man who chose the path that he's walking on and that owes it to himself to see where it goes. But that's not how he sees himself in relation to the world. He cannot see himself because he can only define himself through those dear to him. However, emotion is not his strong suit so he goes to a lovely podium made of wit and humor and uses it as a shield in his dealings with others.

Changes contribute to the world. Each moment in which one person chooses between two, three or who knows how many possibilities, Time moves on a bit further. The purpose behind his steps, what gives it confidence to move forward, is that he believes in the next moment. That's why as we walk down our own path alongside Time we eventually end up facing the consequences of our choices. Only by accepting them, by facing the truth that they show us, can we move on to the moment of the next adventure.

These two are completely different, but at the same time they aren't. You see, at one moment in Time assiduous career they were exactly the same. More precisely they were the same person and they are simply two instances of what that person may become. The cafe isn't empty. Here and there, sitting at a solitary table, lies another possible man that that one small child could become under Time's supervision. For now they are simply waiting to see which one of them will have to spring into action as years pass and younger version after younger version leaves the cafe to enter life.

Differences form in time between who we are and who we once were. Even though these changes can seem small and insignificant, they add up and, eventually, one may not be able to recognize the person that originally occupied the same space in history. So can Time be defined as more than seconds and minutes? I believe it can. I believe that time is nothing else but the sum of our choices, of the differences that we accumulate over the years. When we run out of Time we simply run out of choices. Or perhaps, just perhaps, somewhere in our subconscious, we choose to move on to the next adventure, to the next clean slate in history's filing cabinet.

The End, for now :)