Time

"But we ... we live and die by time and we must not commit the sin of turning our back on time."

"And I know what I have to do now.  I gotta keep breathing because tomorrow the sun will rise.  Who knows what the tide could bring?"

- Tom Hanks, Cast Away

Watched Cast Away tonight for the first time in many, many years and the second time ever.  Now that I fully paid attention (I was perhaps 10-12 years old the first time I saw it so ... can't blame myself) -- wow what a film.  It is stunningly poignant and, yes, C is right to consider Tom Hanks as one of the best actors out there.  (Not that I doubted him, but I find his point proven upon this perusal.)  :)  And the cinematography has some fantastic shots and transitions.  I would love to analyze the use and symbolism of light in the film sometime.  Just spectacular.

But the quotes above and the end of the film have me contemplating time.  How every moment is but an instant - gone in a flash.  And how we are always looking forward.  Part of us must always be looking forward in time, whether for sheer survival or out of want -- necessity or desire.  Yet at the same time, we can only be in each present moment and to not exist fully in each instant robs us of some portion of our potential.  Is this "the sin of turning our back on time?" Losing it?  

How can we live each moment to its fullest, though, without looking past some of them to the future, to where we want them to lead?  And with that, how can we not look back on past moments to learn how to build the present ones towards the future we need or desire?  I think, simply put, we can't.  We must simply achieve whatever balance is right for the given point of our lives, and this balance can change as quickly as we wish it.  Some of life is lived forward, some lived now.  So long as we are not living backwards, we are making something of our time -- living by it, or rather with it.  

For, though I've been told and have contemplated how time is man-made (which yes, the measurement of it is), existence undeniably moves forward with each sunrise, each breath we take, hurtling toward what some label entropy, while others call it the Way or a Grand Design, and still others simply consider being.  Man has not made this.  We exist with it, which means finding whatever it takes to motivate us to keep breathing.

Just thoughts.