Relevant

Time.  A strange little place holder I use to keep track of the events in my life and their order.

I don't think other animals need time.  They don't seem to have a need to know when something will occur in the future, or when it last occurred in their past.  If it isn't occurring in real time, it has little meaning for them.

My life has been run by a clock since I first went to kindergarten.  I was always terrified of being late for school.  I had to be present for meals at designated times.  In the long run I had to learn a musical piece by a certain time in order to play in a  concert, or plan my studies so that I graduated on a certain date.

I actually rebelled and stopped wearing a watch around 1984, but have had to resort to using one when there was no clock on the wall many times since.  Not wearing one only gives me the illusion of being freed from time.  In reality it only gives me a small leeway of several minutes due to the differences in clocks.

Still, time is relevant.  Waiting anxiously for a call from a doctor, or eagerly for a much loved friend, time can drag by slower than a snail in the snow, but let me loose myself in the fascination of a moment and it flits by in the blink of an eye.

Eager for the good parts of life and afraid of the unknown leaves me vulnerable to this thing I call time, so whether I like it or not, whether it is invented or not, it is always still relevant.