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What is Time?
Are you listening?
The little man with the elbow patches on his sweater, resembling my old physics professor, shuffled up to me and my three companions. He spoke with a heavy accent, "What is time?" "Ah ha," I thought to myself, up to now we had been exchanging idle chit chat, which was normal for any class reunion. But here was a topic that we could sink our teeth into.
I jumped into the fray, "Time is Relative, for example: when my wife says, `I'll be ready in two minutes dear.' I know that is not two minutes by my watch. And when my dad tells people he is younger than I, I realize that he is counting in dog years."
The economist announced, "It's all a matter of supply and demand. Supply of time is fixed, while demand is increasing; therefore, the price should be rising at the same rate as demand - but it is not. Why? I'll tell you why - because of a government conspiracy! Government is trying to control the market and has been ever since the original time in motion studies. They said it was just a temporary measure to get through the war, - they said that about income tax too."
"The silly fools, don't they know that interfering in the marketplace creates a black market - and that only feeds the underground economy - which does not pay taxes. If they were smart, they would deregulate time, allow the market to establish an equilibrium price and tax the transactions. Then they would understand that time is money."
The little man with the elbow patches on his sweater shifted from one foot to the other and grinned a polite grin.
The engineer stated, "Time is circular. It is a closed loop system. Deja vu is proof of that. And like an electrical circuit we must develop the technology to harness it as an alternative energy source. The essence of time could be focused through a time funnel to push against a gigantic paddle wheel which in turn would power a time engine. This technology would regenerate the Swiss watch industry which was built on precision time pieces."
The little man who reminded me of my old physics professor frowned and scratched his chin.
The entrepreneur spoke up, " What if time were linear? We could build a time highway where surfing the net would take on a new meaning. Just think of the business opportunities in Time Tourism. The signs would read, 'Time, the Final Frontier' - Journey to the beginning and end of time, experience freeze time, slow mo and feel the excitement of crossing wrinkles in time. We could set up real Future Shops where people could buy souvenirs and a piece of the future.
At this point the little man with the elbow patches on his sweater who looked like my old physics professor spoke purposefully in his heavy accented voice, " My watch broke. Please, what is time?"
© George Torok is an entrepreneur, radio show host and bestselling author of "Secrets of Power Marketing". He delivers inspirational keynote speeches and practical seminars to organizations that want to grow by showing them how to improve their thinking and communication skills. You can contact him at 800-304-1861 or visit www.Torok.com