Your Time Is Up...

Recently, for reasons that elude me, I’ve begun to think about eternity and I’m not entirely convinced I understand the concept. Certainly, men have always contemplated the vague nuances of time and formulated theories (notions, really) of how its vastness may affect their lives. Then, having come to the conclusion that any amount of time larger than that immediately influencing their present existence becomes cumbersome, they begin to assign importance to smaller, more manageable allotments.

So, eternity, that omega of existence’ allocation, pops its head up with such frequency in the speech and writing of man as to lose any meaning save that justifying its use by the speaker. I suppose it serves of its own merit, giving benefit to a multitude of expressions rendered inept without it.

“From Here to Eternity”, for example… this duplicitous phrase provided the literary stimulus to create both a novel and a 1953 movie starring Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. However, what does it mean, in any literal sense? Sure, it’s flowery and sophisticated, evoking nebulous realizations of issues beyond our comprehension, but unless Eternity becomes a suburb of Los Angeles or maybe Pocatello, it is little more than thought provoking.

“The eternal struggle”… “Eternally yours”… So it can also accept both adjectival and adverbial importance? My, my, my— this is one influential word.

Of course, its definition only has value in context of itself and its brother, infinity. Both concepts seem to encompass both time and spirituality. Without that association, there can be no semi-concrete encapsulation of God. “Eternal Father”… “Infinite Wisdom”… pretty powerful stuff, wouldn’t you agree?

I think this is the point where I start to lose my way; this is where I begin to feel the slightest bit manipulated. I know I’m going to die one day— it’s simply a biological eventuality. I also know that in all likelihood, time, in its Einsteinian perseverance, will continue to ‘pass’, if indeed that’s what really happens since time itself is an invention of man. However, without the metaphysical linkage of eternity and belief in an infinite deity, I have no hope of eternal life. Of course, this hope is predicated on a vast and complicated belief system designed to take advantage of my fear of death and desire to never really pass out of existence. Is it only a side benefit to me that these exact same fears, coupled with the day-to-day fears that most people naturally exhibit, form the basis of religion as social control?

To a junkie, eternity can be attached to the quest for his next eight ball of smack. An expectant mother enduring the early pains of labor must certainly think that it will take forever for her baby to arrive. We all reach Heaven in our own way, in our own time, regardless of expressed truisms or inexact utterances of profundity.

A specious argument, you say? Perhaps, but personally, I cannot see how eternity could be any longer than 5, 641,793 earth-years (on the 12th day of July, of course)… but that’s just me.