The Total Hours of Time…

In a writing of half a century or so ago, Arnold Bennett said: “Philosophers have explained space. They have not explained time. It is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is possible; without it, nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily miracle… You wake up in the morning, and… your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours… It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions… And no one receives either more or less than you receive… Moreover, you cannot draw on the future… You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste tomorrow; it is kept for you. You cannot waste the next hour; it is kept for you… You have to live on this twenty-four hours of daily time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul. Its right use, its most effective use, is a matter of highest urgency… All depends on that.”¹ Thus wrote Arnold Bennett. And whenever we assume that we do or do not have time for anything we want to do, or for anything we don’t want to do, we would well look seriously at the total of time there is, and at our use of all the hours. There are 168 hours in every week of life. Take 40 from this — which is by many considered to be a work week — and 128 is what is left. Then take 8 hours 7 times for sleep, or 56. Of course, some work or sleep much longer, and some much less — and there is much of going and of coming and much of miscellaneous activity and obligation — all of which eats up hours — but still, 168 minus 40, minus 56, leaves 72 hours each week for something. And in allotting our lives to work, to sleep, to other activities, well would we remember to consider the total of time. There is “one great fact clearly stated,” wrote John Ruskin: “There is no wealth but life”² — and we would add, time is the essence of it, as swiftly it moves us into eternity.