Issue No. 9

Listen to this week’s issue.

The passing of time is sometimes a neglected feature of the universe in which we live. It is the only resource that you cannot manipulate, overpower, or change. It is the ultimate judge and executioner. Despite time being the only resource that is truly universal and equitable in its distribution, it is often undervalued, underutilized, and taken for granted. Ever since you were born, the clock started ticking. Your DNA started getting affected by the outside environment and is now vulnerable to decay. Every thousand duplications of your cells result in slight errors in copies. Their endings get shortened, leading to aging. You started dying when you were born.

And our lives aren't that long if you think about it. Sure, the average life expectancy now is significantly longer at 70 compared to 50 in the 1950s, due to advancements in healthcare, nutrition, policies, and technology. But 70, in the 200,000-year evolution of our species, is but a millisecond. It's just a blink—no, actually, a single blink of an eye is much slower compared to your life when put into perspective. In the grand scheme of things, our lifetime simply exists in a negligible amount of time.

But to us, it's precious. It's ours. It's not given and not received. It just is. One day, we become conscious and start questioning the world. From a curious child to a bitter old man. Imagine that in a span of 70 years.

Let me show you how short 70 years is for most of us in a techno-civilized world.

70 years is just 70 summers.

Remember how fast one summer comes and goes? Nowadays, one month feels like a week. A week feels like a day, and a day feels like an hour. Yeah. That's how it feels to put your entire life on a table and observe how feeble its length is. From 0 to 15, you're not even conscious of the real things. You're just a child. So that puts your "true living phase" at 55 summers. But in your 60s, you're probably tired of everything, just staying indoors, aching at different points in your body, and forgetting what year it is. That puts your "true living phase" now at 45 summers. But you spend, on average, 8 hours sleeping each day. In a span of 45 years, that's 15 years of being asleep. Now you're at 30 summers. That's like half of your original 70.

Let's go further.

Let's say you spend 3 hours a day staring and scrolling mindlessly on a screen, watching TV, and procrastinating. That's 5 years wasted in total. Now you only have 25 summers left.

25 summers. 25 years. More or less. That's all you've got to live the life you want. That's the period when you are truly alive. How insignificant, how fleeting, how momentary.

Yet, you waste most of it on worry, contempt, and regret. You mindlessly move forward in time, treating life as a mere consequence of existing rather than embracing it as a precious gift. You second-guess your dreams, neglect to build your character, and betray your own principles. A chaotic life with no direction is squandered on trivial matters. You dislike when others waste your time, yet you find yourself doing it to yourself. It doesn't make proper sense. You don't appreciate being disrespected by others, but you disrespect yourself. If that's who you are, then so be it. But don't complain when you grow old and find yourself left with nothing but feeling left out.

And by that time, nobody will be there to accommodate you 'cause by then, you're no longer youthful to deserve second chances. We severely underestimate our youth and squander it as if we are forever this young.

Even though life is momentary, unfathomable poetry lies within your experiences—that life is beautiful because it doesn't last. Regardless of your wealth or poverty, your health or unhealthiness, your youth or old age, time flows without consideration. Think of the countless emperors and superpowers who, in their triumphs and defeats, now remain unknown to the younger generation. What purpose did their legacies truly serve? Did they simply fade into oblivion? It's not the pursuit of greatness itself that is misguided; rather, it is the overlooking of the legacy already bestowed upon you—your lifetime.

Life + Time. Lifetime. The appreciation of both brings a new perspective to your individual and seemingly feeble existence: that no matter how small you are in this world, you have been given time to appreciate its wonders and beauty only to succumb to darkness at the end of it. Time is unforgiving, but it has given us enough.

The clock is ticking.

Apollo 8: Earthrise
NASA

Taken aboard Apollo 8 by Bill Anders, this iconic picture shows Earth peeking out from beyond the lunar surface as the first crewed spacecraft circumnavigated the Moon, with astronauts Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell aboard.