The Inner Monologue of Time

It’s astonishing how much humans have progressed, yet how little they have truly accomplished. Humans are truly fascinating creatures and I believe anyone observing them with an outside perspective would be inclined to agree, death certainty would. But unlike death I don’t believe in fate and I never have, nor will I ever be able to. You see time cannot condone fate and because I am time, fate is off limits. 

It is not as though I am a physical thing, but I am an ever present thing. I watch over those...not really below but rather around me. Another thing to note about me is that I do not interfere with others as my counterparts death and life do. I simply am. I recall all things past, present and even future, though I am not inclined to disclose that with you, because like I said, I do not believe in fate and yours will change if I tell you what exactly your life will look like in ten years. 

Age is a funny thing when your time, recalling something is not a memory but rather an experience or a moment I live through. Through all my moments with the humans one thing has remained clear; they are incredibly intelligent, while simultaneously being rather stupid. Now I’m sure others would disagree, but let me ask you this, can you really disagree with time? 

I think often about what could have happened or what will or what did, but the question that always leaves me pondering the most is; what's next? Now time should know considering I am the literal item holding everyone in place, yet without fate and certainty the preceding moments are entirely up to the humans. This is the question I have been waiting for an answer to for all of my life. So you can imagine how long that is considering I am every passing second. 

I recall a time where life for most humans lasted until they were 30, and they were lucky to live that long considering all of the dangers and unsavoury practices surrounding them. Then I think of this moment, this very instance. You are living it, so maybe you can see why I am perplexed by it. I pass through moments of people dying of deadly viruses, and protests taking cities hostage. I watch as leaders downplay the state of their countries and prioritize their routines over lives.

A similar moment occurred to me when this chaos began, and let's be honest there is no better word than chaos to describe the upset that has literally collapsed normal. Anyways, this moment was during the Spanish Flu pandemic where people were much less equipped to deal with the storm brewing microscopically around them. But that's besides the point because in that moment they had the best medical advancements yet and did the best they could. I think of those people in quarantine and unlike this very moment, they did not have wifi or technology or cellphones, they were truly disconnected. 

Now my point of humans being incredibly intelligent, while simultaneously rather stupid comes into play here, because I cannot and nor can you, I bet, recall a time where your eldest generation complained about the wars they lived through or the food on there table or the hardships they suffered. Obviously there will be exceptions there always are, but clearly you see the correlation. So humans are in quarantine, but they have technology and virtual connection all around them, but mental health is adversely being affected. This..this right here, the shear progress from the last pandemic still isn’t enough. So what's next?

 Being time I have seen more than you could ever know and a frightening consistency that remains is the issues between humans themselves. I think, as time, overseer of all things seconds, minutes, hours, days, okay you get it, it should never take the loss of a human life publicly shown to enact change that has been needed for centuries. The moment where a black man was murdered, brutally, should not have happened and that is coming from someone who has seen countless deaths just as undeserving as this.

Being time one could argue I cannot feel emotions or process feelings, but in this moment along with countless other acts of cruelty, I think even death wept. Now when I say humans have had centuries to resolve the conflict of race, I am not exaggerating because I was there for the entirety of it. For all of the advancements made, the colour of people's skin remains an issue. 

Now if I could talk and take a form there is no doubt that I would have popped up in every instant, likely in trench coat I particularly like the look of those, and educated the people of every moment, every instance that any factor that makes you different from someone else, like skin colour (which by the way is only different because they are from closer to the equator) is not a reason to take a human life. But I can’t do that, so who will? One day I truly want a moment where humans do not have to fight for black lives to matter and at this rate humans are far from it. At the end of the day it is impossible for all lives to matter until every life matters, specifically blank lives. So what’s next?

Progression as a whole is a funny thing, because if we measure progress, for example, in the sense of a lifespan, then progress is significant and compared to when the average life expectancy was 30, in this moment it appears humans are nearly immortal. On the other hand if we measure progress by changes related truly to how life is lived, it took until into the 1900s for women to vote. This may not seem long if you are in this moment, but to me when the first person appeared 5 to 7 million years ago, this is a travesty. Can you imagine having to wait and still be waiting for women, half of the planet’s population by the way, to be considered able and fit to lead lives on their own?  Because I still am, every second. 

There's a moment I recall in a less developed country, that was merely months ago, where a man believed menstruation was a sickness and the women in his life where forced to hide their menstruation and had no modern products to help them. If we talk about the progress of the world as a whole, it is clear there are many left behind. I often wonder what is next for countries like this one. 

Now I tend to rant or spill my thoughts around, like I have been, but returning to this moment, this pandemic, this time, it is clear a struggle like any other is surrounding humans. Mental health is not something new, yet I don’t recall it being something often talked about in other past moments. Humans are fascinating but what is most peculiar is their inner monologue and the complexities of mental state in the human mind. I often wonder what the world would resemble if its most intelligent species could accomplish optimal mental health and prioritize state of well being in everyday life. It is thoughts such as these that even confuse me. Can you believe that? One would generally assume humans would have made these changes since I've been around, but they remain unchanged for centuries. What is truly next?

It was about 2 months ago during a moment in which the whole of humanity stopped staying safe in their homes from the risk of a pandemic in order to protest for a man's death regardless of their skin colour that I realized what was next. Even though they seem so far behind the change is nearer than one thinks. The complexity of humans is truly what holds them back and hinders them, yet at the same time their emotional complexity specifically and their reaction to this wrongful death showed me it is a strength they all possess. In all my existence it has never been more clear in this moment where chaos spreads across the globe and a singular virus affects all humans, I saw exactly what is next, change. And though it may be far too late for a change so critical, the point is it is near and it will come. Because if for generations specific branches of humanity were treated like caged animals, eventually they will become what they were told to be and break out of that cage with the full support of those who where educated to understand the injustices committed.

I have been waiting for what is next, and it is here, now in this moment. What comes next is change. So yes it’s astonishing how much humans have progressed, yet how little they have truly accomplished, but what is even more bewildering is their ability to grow as individuals together and change together.