By Jude Atupulazi
TIME! This four-letter word represents everything concerning life on earth. It is something no one can escape from. It is one thing that can deceive and has, indeed, been deceiving many folks. While it lasts, you think what you are, where you are and what you’re doing will last forever. But, alas! You soon realize that it’s all been an illusion, a great one for that matter.
The reality is that while everything comes to an end, time doesn’t actually end, though it seems to end when we end. Time is indeed timeless; yet, doesn’t appear so to human beings and to all earthly creatures, even after man has tried to capture time in days, weeks, months and years, through the calendar. But it has remained a paradox that will continue to baffle and befuddle us all the days of our lives.
Time steals upon us like a thief. You are born but you don’t know when you age. Even your parents that watch over you never see the transition. They watch you every day but are never able to capture the moment you grow from one month to two and to one year.
For everything, there is time, even for material things. Time makes what is in vogue today obsolete tomorrow. Haven’t we been seeing how vintage cars of yore have turned to become museum pieces of today? Haven’t we advanced from the years of Morris Minor to G-Wagons of today? From bongo trousers to pencil thin trousers? These are some of the physical manifestations of time.
Time also heals. Something happens to you today and you think you’ll die of heartbreak but over time you move on and tell the story. Time only seems to stand still in our imagination while all the time stealthily moving on.
I remember when our flat in Enugu cost just N120 a month but I never thought a time would come when the same amount would not buy a piece of bread. Didn’t they sell some brands of cars for N3000? Today, this amount can barely buy a tuber of yam. What caused it? TIME!
Time teaches us the ephemerality of life, its fleeting nature, its evanescence. Knowing this, why do we brag? Why do we intimidate others? Why do we worry unduly about material things? Why don’t we take things easy and take things as they come? Why fight wars? Why dupe people? Why steal from others? Why suppress them? Taking out time to ponder about this life and how short it is will show us how stupid we are over what should not be.
After all we laboured to get, fought to get and even cheated and killed to get, a time comes when we let go of all and return to our maker empty handed, leaving others to enjoy our material acquisitions.
We may not know what those who have gone yonder think about this but it is possible that they will be looking back and realizing the futility of all the struggles they put up to acquire what they still left behind on their last day. Don’t get me wrong. It is good to enjoy oneself but then, let’s not forget that time waits for no one.
I came upon this nice piece below on the ephemerality of time and found it so good, good enough to share it with you.
Read it below:
Time Controls Life and Humanity Faces the Tyranny of Time
By Sampson Anezu
There is time for birth, time for death, time decides, it changes life and situations.
Well, the pictures here are those of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 1978 and in 2022. Time affects duration of life and it wreaks havocs on body structure as simplified in Obasanjo.
Sometime in 1986, The Guardian Newspaper, precisely on January 26, 1986, carried a front page news captioned, “29, 000 NEW PHONE LINES FOR FOUR STATES”. The younger generation among us may find this news very strange and difficult to understand, particularly those born after 1999.
They will not easily understand that there was a time in our country when an establishment known as NITEL was solely responsible for communication gadgets known as phones in Nigeria. That time, the NITEL workers were like demigods; very haughty, churlish and corrupt in their discharge of duties. Then, phone was for status symbol and this probably prompted Col. David Mark (ex-Senate President) who was Minister of Communication under General Babangida’s Junta, to declare that phone was not for poor people, but time has since changed and nullified this David Mark’s egoistic logic and repressive stand.
Today, phone is for everyone, not only for the rich; therefore, confirming that time moulds change and change is the only thing that is permanent in life, making the world to be a stage. All human actions ultimately end in an anti-climax. For life and death also represent the extremes of grace and grass.
It is this power of time that unilaterally appropriates situations within the human existence, we have now historical examples of glories, decline, demise of empires and great men in them. All have been quietly consigned to the scrap heap of History, tucked within the pages of History.
History therefore, spatially parades such magnificent and powerful entities like the Roman Empire with great names of Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar; Alexander the Great and his Macedonian Empire; Mali Empire, with names like Mansa Musa and Sundiata; Carthage and Hannibal. The Medieval time had Byzantine and Ottoman Empires.
Modern History carries such names like Adolf Hitler; the Third Reich and propagandist, Josef Goebbels; Italian Mussolini; Karl Marx; Lenin; Batista; Nehru; Nelson Mandela; Fidel Castro and a host of others. These are now part of relics of history made by time.
In the Nigerian political landscape, there was a time some names were reigning but time eclipsed them. We only remember such names like Azikiwe, Awolowo, Balewa, Akintola, Aminu Kano, Michael Okpara, Sam Mbakwe, Lateef Jakande, Festus Okotie Eboh, Ahmadu Bello, Barkin Zuwo and others. These political leaders, however, within a space of time, made enormous contributions towards the growth of this country.
During their time, we saw economic advancement and infrastructural development. They facilitated the establishment of some banks like ACB, WEMA BANK, PAN AFRICAN BANK, ALLIED Bank, NATIONAL BANK, BANK of the NORTH, NEW NIGERIAN BANK, AFRI BANK, COOPERATIVE and COMMERCE BANK and others, but where are these banks now?
With time many have disappeared into oblivion. Demands of time and change brought in names like ZENITH, ACCESS, FIDELITY, ECO BANK, STANBIC BANK, STERLING BANK and others.
During the time of these political masters, in their leisure times and days, they enjoyed listening, serenading with the music of Rex Lawson, Zeal Onyia, Victor Olaiya, E.C. Arinze, E.T. Mensah, 7-7, Osita Osadebey, Haruna Ishola, Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey, Celestine Ukwu, Victor Uwaifo (Joromi), and they cruised in the latest vehicles then like 403, 404, Opel Rekord, Land Rover, Volkswagen Beetle, Renault cars, not Venza or Lexus.
Most of these great music maestros that reigned in the 60s and 70s, have gone with time and youths of today merely hear about them. They are much engrossed now with vibes and names like Davido, Portable, Burna Boy, Tiwa Savage, Flavour, Wizkid, P-Square and others. These are current music stars and masters provided by time.
Interestingly, this time around, there are viewing centres where our youths are watching, arguing, busy forming fan clubs, fighting here in Nigeria for Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Liverpool, Ajax, Everton, Arsenal, Man U, and other European clubs, but time and years ago, stadia in Nigeria were always filled with fanatical supporters of local teams like Enugu Rangers, Mighty Jets of Jos, P&T Vasco Da Gama, Rovers of Calabar, Sharks of Port-Harcourt, IICC Shooting Stars of Ibadan, Bendel Insurance, Raccah Rovers of Kano, ACB, NEPA and Stationery Stores of Lagos.
Those were the darling teams in the 1970s and 80s during our own time as youths. Newspapers then like Observer, Daily Star, Statesman, Concord, Chronicle, Herald, New Nigerian, Nigerian Tide, Lagos Weekend, Daily Times, were sold in thousands on daily basis because of their sports pages, comments and other news. Those papers are now defunct. This time around, we talk about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (now X), WhatsApp, cable television and others. Time changes every time in the world.
Now, the pendulum of life oscillates or swings, meaning that with time, no condition remains permanent, only a change with time is constant. How come that the perception of people sometimes changes with time, heroes become villains, villains become heroes.
For example, Muhammadu Buhari, in 2015, was like an Avatar in Nigeria, “Sai baba”, an awaited Messiah, but today he is like an unmitigated disaster and Goodluck Jonathan who was despised, castigated and mauled in 2015, is gradually being rehabilitated by events and time. So, with the unpredictability of time, sometimes our lovers become foes and our foes become friends. Time plays a major role in the human existence.
Therefore, time heals, time buries, time changes and time forgives. There was a time, once upon a time. With time, wound heals, pain vanishes, memories become blank and with time man forgets and you can’t change it, it is the law of nature. So we are all under the tyranny of time.
