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Sunday, January 31, 2010

As time goes by…


Time is precious. It is a commodity of sorts for which there is no dollar value - except in corporate America, where actuaries place a definitive numerical amount on productivity, potential profit or loss, and even life expectancies.

What activities in our everyday lives carry those numerical figures - cleaning house; answering endless e-mails; shuffling paperwork; walking the dog, working?

All of these things that fill our minutes and hours might be considered distractions, but they are a part of life whether we like it or not. They are the things that keep us focused and sometimes feeling productive, but more often than not, some of these activities cost more than we could possibly imagine because of the way we are kept tethered to them, possibly preventing us from accomplishing creative goals, which give fulfillment to the human spirit.

Such has been my plight. I say this not as an excuse but just a reality for not weighing in on this blog as often as I would like.

I’ve had the topic of “time” on my mind for several days now, when I ran across a remarkable video, which brought everything clearly into focus and shook my brain loose.

What if you could compress time? Keep it in a bottle like the late Jim Croce did with his Billboard chart-topping song?

Carl Sandburg once said, “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

The following video puts time, not in a bottle, but in the frame of a camera lens, provided by Eirik Solheim, a Project manager for the development department at the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.

Through his photographic art, Solheim shows us just how precious Sandburg’s coin is in terms of how quickly time passes in the natural world.

On Solheim’s web page, he explains in detail the method he used to compress one full year into 120 seconds. I found it to be a curious and compelling process that made me take action on Sandburg’s thoughts. How about you?

One year in 120 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.