Time, History and Man

"The story of time is a deathless plotless tale" - Shola Ojikutu

Time has always been that eerie phenomenon. The beginning and the end. The end of all beginning; the beginning of all end. Yet time is as abstract as any form of nature, but its effects on nature and man as concrete as the concrete manifests of nature. However, man's existence on earth has been calibrated by time; the moment he reaches his point on the life-scale, time switches his being off.

While man's tale is often a defined story-line, having the kick-off point and stoppage point, time runs on interminably. Who knows the age of time? Perhaps nature. Scientists have been dating natures too - the age of the earth etc. Yet, man's quest for immortality has made him devise a means of living beyond the span given him by time. History.

I find one, almost uncanny succour in history; it notes our exploits and de-exploits, therefore making our brief sojourn here as timeless as time itself which consumes us all. Well, history has its shortcomings, for it is often a helpless whim in the bowels of man's vagaries. But, without it, man is doomed...his existence a meaningless passing on the patient earth. The earth would have had to sigh at man's activities on, and in her belly, like she does other animals, if history had not been invented to immortalise the mortal man.

The relationship between time and history borders on convivial connivance. They jolly well on each other activities; the former runs the race, the later notes every bit of the race. What race? Man's. While at a point man loses its kind or many of its kinds on the race track, history picks up the lost kind, or kinds' exploits or de-exploits making sure the impatient time does not fail to incorporate the defined tale of the lost in its own 'deathless plotless tale.'

Therefore, history and time are concentrically linked with man at the centre of the concentric.

Written by Tobi Idowu.