It has been an entire 8 months…

since I last published an article, and while that has been quite a long time between posts, it has not been for lack of desire. 2021 has been one of the busiest years I’ve had in quite some time, and when not working my day job (helping out at my wife’s company—who says guys who retire in their early 40s get to stop working 😂), I have been ultra-busy publishing videos to my YouTube channel. Also, if you’ve followed me on this blog, on my YouTube channel, on social media or know me personally, you know that I’m the writer who only writes when inspiration hits.  Well with that in mind, before I get into “The Illusion of Time,” I feel it necessary to say a special thank you to my friend and fellow writer, Lissa Johnston (Twitter: @Lissa_Johnston); it was her months of consistently tweeting links to her articles using the hashtag #MondayBlogs that finally broke me out of my funk (that coupled with the inspiration that occurred in the waking hours of this morning). 

Now, without further ado, I turn on the gas and spark the pilot light…

On this day last week (Monday, November 1st), I woke up at 5:30am. One week later (11/8/21), I woke up at 4:30am. Did I wake up an hour earlier? No. It was the exact same time, but how is that? If you blurted out, “It was the end of Daylight Savings Time (DST) Matt,” you are spot on! So, where am I headed with this?

If the above example doesn’t spell it out for you, let me place it as plainly as I possibly can. Time is an illusion, and one that is enforced by our clocks and wristwatches. In other words, if no one ever told you what time of day or night it was, or how many hours had passed, would you even know? I think not. When I woke up early this a.m., the ambient light coming through the window was no more bright or dim than it was the week before. So, is there a problem and if so, what is it?

Let me up front say that there is nothing really wrong with dividing the day into 24, one-hour increments (with 60, one-minute increments in-between—who needs seconds unless you’re racing, right? 😄). After all, that is how business operates in today’s world. For me though, the biggest problem with time is the universal adherence to an on-again, off-again system of Daylight Savings Time. Each year, that archaic-if-you-ask-me system disrupts the circadian rhythms of the vast majority of persons living in civilized locales, and has also been cited by some health professionals as being bad for us (did we even need anyone to tell us that?).

Well, that leads me to my final two points…

By my own definition, Daylight Savings Time, in a way, is a perfect example of sorcery. Why? Because (again by my own definition) sorcery/magic is the use of things that are intangible (such as words, sights and sounds), to in-turn, produce tangible results. Case in point: tell a person who is afraid of bugs that there is something crawling on their back and watch their reaction. There doesn’t even need to be anything on them, but your words (intangible) produced a physical response (increase in heart rate, wild flailing in an attempt to knock off a bug that isn’t even there, etc). Well, the whole, annual Spring-Forward, Fall-Back routine does the same thing (produces obvious physical reactions).

Each Spring, we fictitiously lose one hour from the clock (did the physical number of hours in a day decrease from 24 to 23?). Every Fall, we fictitiously regain that hour that was “taken away from us.” The Spring action tends to result in a long-lasting, general fatigue that seems to last until DST ends, and then magically, on the weekend that the “clocks go back,” you wake up feeling rested and refreshed… which leads me to my final point…

Time itself does not really exist. Why is that Matt? Well, I explain that in the 60-second video embedded below and I’ll end by saying this…

If you believe that energy is neither created nor destroyed (I do), and if you believe that each of us is eternal energy encapsulated in a flesh suit (I believe that as well), then you know that we are timeless beings, operating vehicles that, much like our cars, endure the normal wear and tear associated with owning and operating a vehicle for varying numbers of suns and moons (nope, I didn’t dare say “over time,”—numbers are real, time isn’t). And like automobiles, we, the eternal operators, swap out our vehicles when there is so much wear and tear that they no longer function properly (or in the unfortunate event that they are “totaled in an accident”).

So, is time an illusion? I say “Yes.” After all, what is time to an eternal being?

All the Best!

–Matt

Oh, and lest I forget…

CAN WE ALL AGREE TO PUT DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME TO REST??

It’s time! (smile)

Matt D. Talford is a writer, narrator, and author of three books: “Stuck In An Elevator” – a fictitious tale of passion and self-discovery; “Captain’s Mate: A Practical Guide for Tennis Captains, League Players and High School Coaches”; and his award-winning debut title: ”From Fear to Faith: A Survivor’s Story”  – a memoir about overcoming a rare form of what he calls “the C-word.”  All three books are currently available in paperback at www.talfordarts.com/collections/books or at Amazon.com; and in eBook format on Amazon Kindle and Apple iBooks.  “From Fear to Faith: A Survivor’s Story” is also available in audiobook (narrated by Talford himself) at iTunes, audible.com, and at many other sites where audiobooks are sold.  For information on these and other products, click the “shop” link in the menu.