The perception of time, going, going, gone...

The Fish Factory was busy today, very busy.  I could of been standing under a waterfall of fishes dropping down on my head.  At one point in the morning I completely lost 2 hours.  It was as though five minutes had passed.  It was also good to see these hours had gone by so quickly, so fleetingly.  It is all perceptual, but there is a lesson to be learnt from it.  Keeping busy passes the time quickly, whilst being bored and not doing much at all slows the perception of time down.  In a Catch 22 like situation.  It is also weird how when on busy days, I feel more productive than on non busy days, such as the weekend.  If I have a laid back weekend and intend to do little and achieve little, it is boring.  If I set certain tasks such as the Sunday walk and make sure I do those tasks then the weekend goes quicker.  I've got to a point of pretty much enjoying Sunday walks, not just because they are exercise, but they are a thing which gets me out of the house and is being productive.  Sometimes they seem to go slow, but if I have headphones on and try to listen to the news or various radio channels again time goes quicker.  Last Sunday two hours passed by quite well.  The last 40 minutes were harder on my feet, but the exercise set me up well to get a good night's sleep.  Again, the perception of time during a night had sped up because I was physically tired and needed to rest.  Out like a light.  Which reminds me of a saying I came across the other day.

This was:

Procrastination is the thief of time

I interpreted this in a couple of different ways.  Rather than doing a specific thing, by procrastinating the thing would not get done.  It would still be outstanding and be waiting there again to be actioned.  Making the thing last out longer than normal, the perception of time is stretched.  Alternatively, the time avoiding doing a thing or things means there is little time left when those things are eventually done.  Little time as in you have actually aged.  This is true to an extent.  I have projects outstanding which have been outstanding for years.  I will put barriers in the way.  For example, bloody birds under the roof tiles.  They come clattering down through the tiles of a morning.  In summer when the mornings dawn very early they birds come out at unearthly hours.  I get woken up.  I'm not a roofer, I don't have the skills to sort it out.  I do get up  on a ladder and try to do what I can, I run out in the garden whenever I see pigeons fly on the roof to try and get an idea of where they are getting in.  But never see them.  The alternative is to get professional help.  I've had a roofer go up and do what he can, but he didn't complete the job.  He couldn't find their entry point.  So I'm back at square one.  I'll have to get another roofer but this time be prepared it will cost a lot more money which I don't have, so to this extent the procrastination has a degree of justification.  In the mean time I just put up with the birds as much as I can and contemplate what the next move should be.  Years have now passed, I definitely am not getting any younger.  There are other times where procrastination is not justified.  Such as cleaning up my study room.  Which needs me to be brutal with some of the objects in it and just throw them away.  Yet the hoarder in me wants to hang on to them.  Specialist magazines I'll probably never get time to catch up with and when I do the information they hold will be out of date.  A simple realisation, a reality, and yet difficult to act on.  So procrastination can be justified or unjustified. 

Which raises the question of how should time be marked?  Should it be marked by the things which are achieved in the available time or not.  Our time on this earth is finite.  OK, big things can be done in short time but usually this is in co-operation with other people.  There are some individuals I know who appear to get a lot done in a short period of time.  They also then get praised for what they have done.  Yet when I see the quality of their work I know it is awful, they are effectively great box shifters and nothing more.  The work they do then has to be cleared up later on by some unsuspecting person who has to put in even more time and effort to correct it.  Which makes me think and believe there is:

You can not cheat time

This is not a famous quote, because it is my own quote and conclusion.  The same would go for exercise.  You can not cheat on the benefits of exercise by pretending not to commit to it.  In the same way, skimping on time by not doing something properly and conscientiously does not actually save time or money.  Although it may drive the perception both have been saved, the reality is they have not.  Unless you don't mind leaving a mess behind for others.  Which is going to guarantee bickering of the masses.

In the end, it could be the reality is there is no reality.  If there was no perception of time, or anything else then we'd of reached oneness with the universe.  Though sometimes oneness can just be about getting the job done and not letting the perceived pressures of time bear down like a fallen ox.  Heavy man, heavy.