TIME ... is it Real?

Long years back, when I was staying in a hostel, one night, as I was just dozing off, my room-mate, a scientist from one of the leading research institutions in Bombay, asked me;

"Murali; What is time?" Waking up from my half-sleep, I thought the guy's watch must have stopped dead and replied that it is about 12.30, past mid-night.

"No. I mean, What is TIME?." He repeated.

Now .. The dead of night, when you are trying hard to go to sleep isn't the right time to come up with such a question. I say 'Good Bye' to a good night's sleep and sit up. We discuss the matter for over an hour and decide to call it off and go back to sleep, since the next day was a working day. It left us no wiser than when we started.

Now ... come to think of it; What really is TIME?

Omar Khayyam said; "The unborn tomorrow and the dead yesterday; Why fret about them if today be sweet";.

Yes, indeed. It's only the present moment that we have to think about and if that could be joyful there no reason to worry either about the past or the future. Sometimes, the present or the today isn't exactly that sweet and that's the whole problem. And why isn't it sweet? Well.., may be you carry a bit of yesterday with you all the while and you want the tomorrow to be better than the yesterday; all that at the cost of 'Today'. It's a bit crazy...

Sometimes, when I think of all the hours, days, months and years that pass by and the ones that stretch ahead, the image that comes to my mind is that of a long unending 'Highway', with quite a few turns and twists. If it's a long straight stretch, you could possibly see what's coming ahead as you keep trudging along (and that makes it all boring). The blind curves and the uncertainty of what lie ahead, perhaps, imparts some fun to the trudging... or, perhaps, makes one aprehensive. You either look forward to what you're going to see as you turn the curve or you cringe with fear depending mostly on what you've learned from past experience.

The year that's past, the yesterday or the few minutes that I spend reading through this draft before posting it; they existed, they were real and were there for all to see and experience. What happened to them?

Whoosh..., have they just vanished?!! Or, are they still existing somewhere back there (for us to go back and change some of the things that we did then!)? And what about the next year, the tomorrow or the evening that's coming or even the moment when I would be clicking on the 'Publish Post' button? Are these moments already existing or are they something just waiting to happen... coming into existance just as I reach that point of my journey? (Journey, from where to where?!!)

If neither the moment that's past nor the one that's coming is real then all that is real is this moment, the now. On the other hand if both the moment that's past and the one that's coming is already there and are real, so's this moment. Why do I do what I am doing now???... Perhaps, because that's what's real. I act, I think, I comprehend ... therefore now exists. (Incidentally 'cogito' means 'think' or 'comprehend'? And how are the two different?)

Does 'time' exist independent of 'events'!? We comprehend the passage of time from the events that happen one after the other. The Sun rises, twilight spreads banishing the darkness of the night, birds, animals and people wake up and a new day starts during the course of which a whole series of events take place. These events that happen one after the other make us aware of the passage of time.

Or is it the other way? That time passes and the events appear to be happening because time is carrying us along past the events that are already there?

In a completely static world or universe, where nothing moves and nothing happens there will be no past and no future, only now. In such a world will 'time' exist?

Crazy thoughts.