Why Humans Don’t Realise The Value Of Time and Its Relation To The Human Thought — A Philosophical Inquiry
By: Anoovrat Singh
Tags: Thought, Anoovrat, Time, Philosophy, Mind

I’ve often seen people looking disappointed and sad after someone fondly known to them has passed away. I also see people ‘missing’ their loved one after their physical or emotional proximity ceases to exist. A certain group of people miss their college or school days. There is also a bunch of people looking forward to something ( either good or bad ) in their mind or lost in their thoughts on a certain event that happened in the past.

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What is happening in the case of each of these groups of people?

This is an intellectually challenging question to understand and consequently probe. During one of my thought experiments, I was able to derive a few intrinsic and important details on time and human-thought that I’d like to bring forth.

The power and ability of the human mind to ‘think thoughts’ is generally untamed in most humans since the training of thoughts is (generally) not a part of the school education system’s curriculum — therefore the intrinsic nature of humans as thoughtful animals fails to supplement the cause of the human — in an all positive manner — as humans don’t know what to think, how to think, when to think, what thoughts to give importance to and which ones to ignore. The dynamics, relevance and cause of time are still being studied and worked out by the philosophers and scientists. Therefore, very limited reliable literature is available in the public domain for humans to learn from and educate themselves on the nuances of time.

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One thing that is of fundamental importance to the idea of time is our awareness to its existence. Since most humans are lost in random thought, being aware of the existence of time becomes an arduous and almost unachievable task. Only briefly in their lives, humans experience being truly aware of time — during moments when they have to adhere to a strict and difficult to accomplish deadline or while looking forward to something certain and important in the near future.

Another fundamental reason why people don’t realise the value for most things about time the importance they attach to their thoughts and their notion that all thoughts are to be taken seriously by them.

The author believes that the theory of time and thought are intertwined in ways unexplainable in clear and simple terms. It is therefore important to understand that all thoughts happen in time.

It’s true that the amount of thought given to time and the amount of time given to thought are inherently important to understanding the fundamental essence of both time and thought.

In 2020 social media and mainstream media are a recipe for lack of thought on time and consequently leads to lack of time given to a thought. Their fundamental business model is built upon sucking the time and and occupying the thought space of its users.

It goes without saying that time is relative, it does not naturally happen to us as a universal constant but it is experienced by us relative to our state of being — both mental and physical. Time unlike other most other phenomenons happening to humans — is real but only in its consequences.

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I believe that there is only one solution to knowing the true value and nature of time. It is for each one of us to explore for ourselves.

This is a 3-Step process :-

1.) Understanding (and not being limited to just knowing) that time exists relative to one’s mental and physical state.

2.) Observing and being cognisant of the fleeting nature of time in all its normalcy.

3.) Living in time, instead of living by it.