The Inexorable and Bizarre Passage of Time

I am absolutely convinced that time is an artificially created construct.

This is something that I believed, but didn’t really test before coming to Arabia.  It started with the work week, which is Sunday to Thursday.  Then Friday is the Sabbath, followed by Saturday, which is just a Saturday, and then back to work on Sunday.

All the westerners out here will get confused from time to time concerning what day it is – no matter how long they have been here.  And it is strange going to church on Friday and having Saturday be the last day of the week.  And what would normally be Friday – that’s Thursday, and church is the very next day.

Yeah, that’s all weird.  But it’s only compounded by the flight over here.  I get on a plane in Utah in the afternoon.  It flies me to another city (Denver, Atlanta, whatever).  And from that city in the evening it flies me to Europe (Amsterdam, Frankfurt, etc.).  On that flight they bring out a dinner and then everyone tries to sleep and a while later they bring breakfast.  Seems fairly normal, right?

Except for the fact that, when we arrive in Europe, it ain’t breakfast time!

What your body knows is that about 9 hours passed.  And on the plane you had the appropriate number of meals.  But by the time you arrive in Europe your internal clock is all messed up.  You then walk about the airport, which is simply an island –  where all these people are gathered whose concept of the passage of time is confused.  

Time swirls all about, encompassing us all.  At the airport, flights leave at a predetermined time.  But to the international traveler it is all just an event.  A blur.  A portal to pass through.  Time’s passage is focused entirely on your personal experience – rather than by the surrounding area.  What you are experiencing is entirely independent from the time flow you came from as well as the one that you arrived at.

So you get to your next gate, wait a bit, hop on a plane again, and seven hours later you’re in the desert, and it’s the middle of the night.  It feels like you have been travelling forever.  In actuality, you have been travelling for about 23 hours.  You left SLC at 1:30 in the afternoon – on a Friday.  In SLC, 23 hours later would be 12:30 in the afternoon the next day - Saturday.  

But it is now 10:30 Saturday night in Arabia.  And you have to get a few hours of sleep before going to work the very next day – Sunday. If you’re travelling east.

If you’re travelling west… well, this last time I left in the middle of the night.  I saw the passage of dark to light, to dark, to light, to dark again – all on the same day.  I left in the super early morning on Friday.  I travelled for 26 hours and arrived at 8:30 at night – the very same day I left Arabia – Friday.

Like I said, the passage of time is an artificial construct.  These days it isn’t hard at all to step out of it into something else – a coexisting construct.  

Anyway, so here I am.  It’s a Wednesday.  And this morning, as I was walking in to work I was ruminating on the week and the next few days.  For just a fleeting moment my brain understood the following:

1. I would be going to church the day after tomorrow.

2. The day after that would be a Saturday and I would have a break.

3. And that this was the natural order of things – as if, in all the world, there would be nothing other than this.

I had fully accepted, for that moment, my current construct.  And, for that moment, my current construct had completely obliterated yours.  

In my mind.

Bizarre.

Perhaps similar principles dictate the differences and conflicts between cultures.  Between individuals.  Between God and mankind.  Where one fully accepts their personal and current construct – to the exclusion of all the others.