the thing i don't like about time is its consistency.

insensitive to the workings and wanting of the human heart, it continues to march on in its unbroken rhythm and speed. time is not flexible. it does not stretch or slow in the quiet, meaningful moments that are scattered throughout a life. time does not accelerate during a boring train ride or a (seemingly) endless lecture. you can not rewind it or buy more of it. time does not surrender to anything any human can offer.

but time does create a multitude of opportunities. each second splits into millions upon millions of individual decisions that combine to form the next second. and every clock beating in a defined rhythm, counting incessantly onward, is dependent on every action of past and the present to form the future.

i wonder how many times you'd have to live the same day to really understand it. to really know each tiny details of each step of the day. to understand each particular person choosing carefully and rationally, boldly and impulsively, or wisely or foolishly. i wonder how long it would take to really comprehend the sunrise-to-sunset simplicity masked by so much complexity. to feel each butterfly flap and each faucet drip turn into tornadoes and tidal waves.

i wonder how long you'd have to look, to go through the mess of a day to find the quiet, beautiful things we overlook in our haste to move from one second to the next - from one day to the next year. to find what we're so often reaching for but accidentally ignore. to stop for one instant and really look at that moment. to put maturity on hold and hold an index finger up to the world.

to appreciate something as simple as sun in an empty room. a jar full of pennies. or last weeks paper, lined with an unfinished sudoku. to find the small things, like the scent of baking or the fluff of a good pillow. to appreciate something like the light in our eyes and the air in our lungs and the love trapped inherently in our hearts.

and even if every person i met screamed negativity in my face; even if every person told me of a sad, strange, tumbling outcome to every tower i built. if every voice had a rebuttal for every word i wrote, found lies in every truth i held.

even if every voice i heard warned me of what can happen if i try; if the entire world was a massive example of the failure of every attempt at peaceful, simple happiness. even if i myself had failed a thousand times before.

i'd try it anyways, because only time will tell.