Time

Another year has passed.
2018 is just a number left behind in a numerous crowd out of which it might later rise again, like other years in connection with events, occasionally entering our minds have done before.
I moved from Germany to Finland in 1989. That was 30 years ago. Incredible! If someone came to me and said it happened 10 years ago, I wouldn’t be surprised.
In 1993 I moved from Finland back to Germany. This was 25 years back from now.
I still see myself walking through my new little hometown for the first time. This July morning is not only clear in front of my eyes still now. When I start becoming aware of it again, I can feel it with my whole body.
And then 2004, the year in which my life in Finland started for a second time.
Now I have been living here for more than 15 years...

Time flies. The passing of 30, 25 or even 15 years feels terrifying when you, for whatever the reason might be, suddenly start thinking about it.
Where was I then?  What did I do, feel and think?
Where am I now? What do I do, feel, think?

I know what I am doing right now, at least. But, the things I feel and think at this particular moment are not so easy to describe.

Now is so short! Does it even exist?
Time and tense are not the same things.
Past, present and future overlap. They penetrate each other and lose their sheer content when seen within the process of time itself.

No one can say when this endlessly streaming massive beam came into existence.
It didn’t happen when we started to count time and created the term itself. It had happened long before that.
It didn’t start when we “settled” on this planet and developed to what we are now. It had started long, long before that.
It didn’t start when our planet and the whole universe emerged in the infinity of space, which is as infinite as time itself.

When nothing had existed yet, there was still something there, lingering in this nothing or in itself. It will linger on forever. Call it time, space, something, nothing, it …

The beam will stream and glow forever.

Now it is only we who can/can’t say what forever really means.
It is us who define words, phenomena, and things much stronger than we are ourselves.
It is also in our hands to decide if we see time and its passing by as something frightening or something great.
We shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously. We know who our friends are.

Time should be one of them!