by LJ Frank

Swathed and wrapped in natural wear I swim in the cosmological soup called time, while the clock periodically grabs me by the ankles and threatens to pull me under, my habits from work to play, to meals and sleep are corralled and governed by the architecture of the minute – the seconds in silence tick towards the juncture of the artificially produced number of sixty. 

The clock is a dominant factor of living, imperfectly designed to instill discipline and structure, though angst and fear may occur along the way, and the minute artfully serves competition, cupidity, and influence. 

The clock is but one psychological and philosophical ingredient in the architecture of time’s portfolio. 

Time doesn’t necessarily heal, rather it allows forgetfulness and an opportunity to learn, nor is time money except for the impoverished recipient soul serving an indifferent master, nor is time a poison or necessarily a gift except in the human mind that invents and manages its images within the context of a material world. 

Is man imprisoned by the clock he manufactured while attributing the theory to a higher power?

The facade of time is all around me even when I am not looking directly at its architecture – in the form of a standalone grandfatherly timepiece, or a nouveau wall fixture, a sport clock implanted in a vehicle dashboard, or digital object embedded in a computer, or an ornate clock displayed on top of a pole or tower, or a work of art crafted in a piece of jewelry hung around the wrist or neck…or perhaps, it’s the voice echoing off the walls of buildings telling me it’s time for a prayer, or the church bells notifying me that the hour of service is near, or grating sounds of whistles and horns…and, there’s the timepiece in my head and the measured beats of my heart reminding me to keep watch with eyes focused on the horizon.

The minute’s value is one of awareness, the reflection in the glass betrays the wrinkled engaging face rather than the Botox-ed fillers on a “youthanized” countenance as if to avoid the coming estrangement. Are the repairs on one’s face and body symbolic of the surgery on a classical building’s structure to help retain a sense of vitality and timelessness?  

I question whether our meditations on the design of a timeless minute are gauged within the framework of the second-hand on a clock. And I contemplate time’s architecture in such a way that it might be transcended through self and other forgiveness while deferring the jealousies, wounds and angers of existence. Otherwise, my fate might be tied to misuse.

Ambiguity more than certainty is core to my philosophy.

As the Earth revolves and the sun appears to descend on the horizon perhaps the architecture of the minute is to be found in a place yet to be fully understood.