How do you get time to slow down?  I’m having a lot of fun these days.  Our new site just went up this morning, we’re in the process of signing 10 new artists and 15 new CDs, the company is growing daily, I’m productive and happily married and it’s sum-sum-summertime!

I look at my life and think, “Hey, this is great.  Let the good times roll.”  And then sometimes I have these dreams where I’m back in college and I’m in my early twenties and, though I’m always a little lost, I’m young again.  I wake up startled to find that a whole lotta years have passed and the years seem to be moving even faster to some nebulous end.

I remember my dad saying that his weeks had become like days, his months like weeks and his years like months.  That was always a bit bizarre to me then, but I’m beginning to understand it now.  Time is, after all, just a perception.  Even Einstein said and proved that time isn’t real.

So if it’s not real then how do we make it up to our advantage?  “How do we slow it down and enjoy the now-ness of life more?” is probably the real question.

And there in the question probably lies the answer.  As always, Be Here Now.  The wise ones say that there is no time – only now.  I believe that, even understand it at times.  I try to live the concept, but don’t very often succeed.  Life just gets going too fast and I get caught up in the whirlwind of it all and then the time really rushes on.

When I went across the world doing the Siyahamba project, time did seem to slow down considerably.  Why?  I think because I was doing things differently every day, differently than my everyday life.  There were new people, places and experiences that forced me to focus more, challenged me to focus more on the moment at hand and by its very nature forced me to live more in the now.

Our normal daily lives tend to be somewhat repetitive – we get up, we eat, we go to work, we eat, etc.  Doing this every day, our days and then weeks seem to begin to blur together and time does seem to speed up.  Is it really doing this?  Is the clock on the wall ticking faster?  We say ‘no’, but time is just perception and if our perception of it speeds up, then who’s to say the seconds aren’t ticking off faster?

We go to sleep at night and when we sleep well, it seems like just 5 minutes went by.  Does time speed up in our unconscious state?  Not necessarily for those who are awake.  So time is relative to the mental state of the individual.

This means that I control my perception of time in my mind.  I am in charge, not time.  My ability to stay in the moment, to live each moment fully, giving no focus to the regret of the past or the fear of the future is my salvation in this time conundrum.

My 2.5 to 3 hours of time spent each day writing this blog is a case in point.  I do it from about 4:30 AM to 7:30 each morning.  The phone don’t ring, the world is mostly asleep and I am left to visit with my imagination, memories and new thoughts.  I get lost from time, I’m unaware until I’m finished.  Then I’m aware.

When I’m in the studio deeply into the music sometimes, 6 hours can go by like a moment or two.  I come out of my reverie back to consciousness (or perhaps back from real consciousness) usually because some bodily function demands it.  I’m startled to see the clock and how much time has passed by.

So in these cases time speeds up when I’m concentrated and in the now-ness of creativity.  It does not slow down.  This is the opposite of what I was saying earlier in case you’re not paying attention.  Is that goofy or what?  When I’m involved in the moment, time slows down; when I’m super involved, time speeds up and almost disappears.

So much for time.  If it’s so relative and so much a result of our perception and so changeable, then why do we give it such a place of honor or importance in our lives?  This can only be our mortal mistake — something that we were taught to do by a world that misapprehends the truth.

On the other hand, we need to be on time.  Half the talent in NYC I won’t work with because they don’t know how to be on time.  People who are late drive me crazy and I won’t deal with them and cannot trust them.  To be timely is a plus; to be late is a fault.

So we can’t throw our clocks away.  We must live in this world of time and yet, at the same time, live outside of it, without it.  It would be great to just throw the clocks away and live.  Sleep when we were tired, eat when we were hungry, work when we were motivated.  Would life then become more timeless?  Certainly so.

But that’s just not going to happen for the better part of humanity.  We are stuck to the ticking clock counting down the seconds of our lives.  Scarey when you think about it.  Like I said, I like it here.  I wanna stay!  Yet mortal law gets up in your face sometimes and screams, ”You only have so much time!”

Have I written myself into a corner here?  No, I don’t think so.  Though I don’t, as usual, have all the answers, I do have one summation from this morning’s line of thought.

Time is only important when it needs to be important.  Otherwise, give it no importance.  It’s perceptual, so if it’s bothering you, change your perception.  Get on with it.  Don’t regret the time; don’t fear the time.  If we do, we’re just simply in error – simply making a mistake.

So in answer to the original question, “Who knows where the time goes?”

Who cares?