Unfurnished

We have a strange relationship with time.

• When a deadline approaches, we wish we had more of it;

• When we are standing in line waiting in front of a shop we want it to pass faster;

• As we stare into the mirror and notice the first sign of wrinkles at the corner of an eye, we want it to slow down again. 

Time has become our enemy. 

We either run away from it, or feel chased by it. We are constantly negotiating with it. 

But what is time? 

In Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, time is depicted as an illusion. It is the way change is perceived when consciousness narrates experience. 

Siddhartha learns this from the river. To the river, everything exists all at once: the ocean, the waterfall, every bend and current. Each form is connected simultaneously. To the river, time does not exist.

The river does not hurry, nor does it wait. Unlike humans, it does not respond to impatience or anxiety. It simply moves at its own pace.

Time, like the river, is indifferent by nature. It does not react to how we feel about it. Our urgency, fear or resistance does not alter its movement. Therefore, what we are really struggling with is not time itself, but our relationship to it. 

Time continually confronts us with what we cannot control. It moves forward without regard for our readiness, our plans. It exposes the instability of identity, the uncertainty of desire and the limits of effort, reminding us that change will occur whether we agree or not.

“No one ever steps in the same river twice.”

– Heraclitus

Now what can we do about it? 

While the current of time is beyond our control, what remains is how we relate to it. 

The urgency and unease we feel toward time comes from an inner resistance to its movement, and this resistance forms because time continually disrupts the identities we rely on and dissolves expectations before they can fully take shape. 

What matters then is not controlling time, but letting go of our dependence on external definitions of who we are and where we should be. 

The moment that external reliance begins to fall away, and an inner direction starts to form, much like a star finds its own orbit, time starts to lose its power, because its movement no longer threatens our sense of self. 

And that’s when an inner compass finally appears; one stops struggling with time, and they simply let time pass through them.