I recently left a job where my age was conspicuously made a negative determinant of my compos mentis, both personally and professionally. I abhor ageism in all its forms! I had to leave.

What did I learn from my brief stint at the unnamed aforementioned joint? Gentle reader, please hear me out.

What follows is a heartfelt rendition of the age-old paradox – the experience of youth in a dying world. Here I wish to invoke the sacred topic (i.e. hallowed to every writer worth his/her salt) of TIME.

What is Time?

A provocative question, ain’t it? Recently, our most productive genius, Elon Musk, laboured to explain the purpose of xAI during one of his interviews in the Middle East. In summary, he said the purpose of AI is understanding the universe by asking the right/relevant questions.

I am of the firm view that one of the questions we should be asking is “What is time?” What is its relationship with reality? Are the two (time and reality) interchangeable? As always, Albert Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2 should find its way in every question humanity asks itself and its Maker (if one believes in the existence of One).

Wikipedia defines TIME as, “the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to compare the duration of events (or the intervals between them), and to quantify rates of change of quantities in material reality or in the conscious experience. Time is often referred to as a fourth dimension along with three spatial dimensions.”

Well, according to me, this is hearsay.

On hearsay

I loathe gossip! I am a man of Science and Faith. That is a dangerous combination, I know. A recent event in my life affirmed this virtue of mine. I will not labour my gentle readers by going into the details of this so-called “episode”.

Instead, I will tread the narrow and painful path of philosophy on the broader matter. A path that may biblically lead to my peril. To use the good book as my reference point, I wish to pivot on Proverbs 1:7, which says,

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,

But fools despise wisdom and instruction. – NKJV

What this verse essentially says is that the starting point of wisdom is fearing the Creator, not necessarily being advanced in age or acquiring knowledge through mere existence. This is not hearsay; this is a well-established FACT, according to the greatest philosophical text ever penned.

The above verse alone negates the infantile abuse of ageism in all its aspects!

So, what is TIME?

My humble view is that time is a relative parameter along which wisdom is tried and tested. In other words, it is the currency of existence. Wisdom, knowledge and understanding exist outside of time. Being older than me does not necessarily mean you are wiser than me.