Time

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the?shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannh?user* Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”?Replicant?Roy Batty?Blade Runner

Batty, in his?last words, accepts that despite his physical superiority and his failure of finding a way to live longer, time is something that he simply can’t avoid and defeat. It is the reason why?he saves Deckard. Looking down at him and seeing him struggle, holding on for his dear life, he realizes at that moment that both of them are equal – two creatures trying to survive, trying to hold on and extend beyond that finite existence that nature has given them.

A short story from my book?FEEL THE WILD, titled "TIME"

I stand in the middle of a black lava field that stretches for miles. Before the eruption, this landscape was lush with trees and filled with life. There was a beach so beautiful that it was the island’s official postcard, promoting this divine location of palm trees keeping watch over black sand. But time has scorched this beauty; it is now covered in molten black rock, twisted and burned by fire, trapped under a blanket of desolation. It’s easy to lose hope in this no man’s land, a place where even the strongest of gods would feel abandoned. Hades never forgave his brothers. But all this is part of Nature’s plan.

Past sunset, the sky and the horizon become one. The darkness takes over, and if it wasn’t for the cloudless night, with its myriad stars and gravity keeping me grounded, I wouldn’t know which way was up or down. Despite the eeriness of the moment, something incredible is happening.

While daylight reveals a tortured landscape, at night the blood of the planet comes to be seen. And there is nothing tortured about it. Life flows under my feet. I feel it all: the earth, its force, and its intensity. It is then I realize this place is not about death and destruction; it is about life and creation.

Time is Nature. It is the force that drives everything. As I find myself next to a boulder the size of a bus, slowly cracking its way forward, I come to understand the pace and rhythm of life.

Nature has given us time to evolve and develop an intelligence that is unmatched on this planet. But, like any good fable, with such an incredible gift came an even greater burden – self-awareness. As much as we tend to think of ourselves as omnipotent and capable of outstanding feats, we are nonetheless mortals who will fade away over time. Independent of whatever legacy we may leave, even the greatest of us will be forgotten. Our existence might be relevant to us and to the ones we care about and love, but in the scheme of the Universe, we are just a footnote in the story of evolution, a humble servant to life’s mission of expansion.

Facing our mortality and insignificance, we see time as a disease, as a theft, as an injustice, as a destructive force, and as the most valued currency we possess.

But isn’t it through time that the most beautiful things are created? It takes nine months for a human to develop. It takes years to find that peaceful place in your heart. It takes a lifetime to realize your most precious possessions were the simplest things you tried so hard to avoid.

Time is the complexity I taste in wine, or the beauty of an oxidized piece of copper. It is the essence of everything I cherish, and it is my mentor as it brings me back to reality and makes me understand the universe.

I once read the words of an African Elder to a young European woman about her frantic pace and need to get things done on schedule: “You have watches but no time. We have no watches but plenty of time.”

In this culture of speed, where even the simple gesture of saying “thank you” is seen by many as a waste of time, where anything longer than 140 characters is not worth reading, how will we ever understand and appreciate the beauty of life? How will we achieve wisdom if we can’t even take the time to become wise? Have we become spoiled and arrogant, basking in a society of convenience and overnight deliveries? Maybe it’s time to stop, breathe, relax and listen to the world around us and discover what we have been missing.

PS. I shot this video back in 2013, on the lava field of the Big Island of Hawaii