Do you ever just stop and notice the passage of time? Yeah, well don’t do that.
Time should never just pass.
You should be engaging time. Driving it.
Time is change; it is the progress of the universe from one configuration to another. If from your perspective it is merely “passing,” it means that you have let go of the controls. You are a time traveler, a transformer of the universe. It’s a tough job, and one of the rules is that you don’t get to let go of the controls.
…except for when time stops. When you are in deep contemplation, when you are enraptured, when you are engrossed,when you are filled with joy — when your attention is elsewhere, far from the ongoing change. Then you let go.
But when time starts back up again, so must you.
Look at what’s left of this amazing creature. Many millions of years ago the struthiomimus was quick, lithe, graceful. It was fully engaged in its environment. It was, to the extent that it could be, a transformer of the universe. It was making time happen.
Then one day, probably in an instant, it was all over. Time stopped, fully and finally.
For the struthiomimus, time has been “passing” ever since.
