on time

time is truly giving me a run for my money. i read somewhere that einstein didn't believe in it. apparently, he thought there was no such thing. hhmm (seriously raises the question of whether it's better for a theory if the theorist believes in the principles the theory is based on or really really not). then there is all those languages in which 'soon' and 'a short while ago' is the same word. more hhmm. plus the idea that time, should it exist, is nowhere like the sad linear concept us poor westerlings have come up with but a wonderful cyclical turning wheel. hhmm hhmm. and then of course the buddhist notion that since both future and past are but a figment of our imagination, there is no other time than this very second (i guess that's where buddhism and einstein meet?). and what was it again that i learned at school about time and the hopi indians?

so where does that leave little me? how can i spend year in year out in constant shortage of something that doesn't exist? and how can i ever be wasting it? or saving it? and what about all those eighteenth century people, the jane austen character types, whose time was (they say) so much slower than ours? how did they get to have slower time? and can i have some too please (am reading a book called Slow in the hope of finding out how, but have so far fallen asleep three times in the course of the introduction) (nothing to do with the quality of the book, am just very tired)? and why does it seem like such a good idea to split time up, but then the more i categorize it (time with the children, household time, social time, work time, my time), the less of it there seems to be (and is that how it works with birthday cakes too?)?

hhmm. hope you have something illuminating for me. in the meantime, i'll keep reading and thinking, and keep you posted.