I can feel that my time is measured. By whom? Perhaps at birth each one of us is assigned a personal timekeeper. A timeless, changeless individual on a tall work stool hunched over a chronometer on a bench strewn with cogs and wheels and spinners and tiny, intricate shafts and hinges and nuts and bolts and likewise the tools necessary for all manner of maintenance and upkeep, and their singular focus is on the timepiece before them in an effort to keep it reliably ticking away. I picture my timekeeper as a bent, gnarled, pinched, spry old man with a gleam in his eye and sparkling flecks of white in his long, gray hair and beard. Or perhaps that is too traditional. Perhaps my timekeeper is a beautiful, young woman with long flowing red and golden hair, green eyes and a determined look and manner that would keep the most intrepid of curiosity-seekers at a distance. I would like to approach. But I believe it to my benefit if she is allowed to work with no distraction. Does the timekeeper know when the timekeeping will stop? Is the timepiece before them counting down? Or counting up? If it is counting down, to what? A predetermined number of minutes? An ordained event? An eventual stifling quiescence? And does this imply mortality? Insignificance? Emptiness? Nothingness? If it is counting up, to what? A passing into a different possibility? A fulfilled potential? Punishment? Reward? Enlightenment? And does this imply a referee and/or a scorekeeper? Or is the time, counting up or down, truly random, dependent upon the skill of the timekeeper, the availability of parts and tools, and the intensity and number of distractions? Perhaps there is a combination of factors. If I fulfill my potential at 30, but it is my destiny to live to the age of 66, is my timekeeper out of work for 36 years? Game over? Or am I perhaps assigned an apprentice timekeeper, a personal Siri, learning their trade on my now easier-to-maintain countdown? And is this why one may prefer a count down to a counting up? Because it offers a greater possibility for longevity?

I believe a countdown to be easier to maintain and to offer a greater possibility for longevity due to momentum. I don't believe a temporary lapse in the workings of one's timepiece counting down will immediately stop one's time. In fact, I believe, because the countdown is for a determined moment ahead, if done reasonably quickly, a new stopwatch could be synchronized and assigned.

I believe power (merely perceived or otherwise) forces a counting up to turn around and become a count down. And I believe the greater the power the greater the momentum, and the less likely / the more difficult it becomes for one to again begin counting up. And as implied I believe a countdown eliminates the possibility / need of a referee and/or a scorekeeper. Sad.

Perhaps one’s lifetime holds the potential for multiple switchbacks. I would like to believe that one’s childhood is a counting up, but I can see how some of those on both ends of the privileged spectrum may more likely spend their childhood counting down. And I would like to believe that one can choose at any time throughout one’s life to again begin counting up, but I can see how some (perhaps many, most or all) of those on the lower end of the privileged spectrum may not have that option.

I began by saying I can feel that my time is measured. Perhaps beyond the innocence of childhood, this recognition is necessary to enable one’s timekeeper to count up. Once one reaches a majority balance of cynical certainty (vs active hope), coupled with a denial of one's possible mortality, and regardless of perceived or actual power, one is pretty much in a state of time-biding apathy in which the end is on its way. As a species, the more and more of us who settle for countdown, will not only not move us forward, it will also expand, intensify and steer that end toward us. As a species. Sad.