the edge of time

If there is one common thing in the universe, it is time, according to Henri-Louis Bergson (1859-1941), a French philosopher. Each moment carries the whole flow of the past, and each moment is new and unrepeatable, like a rolling snowball or piece of music.

Often I can literally feel time pricking my back. Standing still is not an option. It pushes me forward, forces me to change, and gives me a tremendous urge to create. Until I fall over the edge.

However, there is not only a back but also a front to time. The German philosopher Ernst Simon Bloch (1885-1977), for instance, did not see time as merely the steady approach of death, but also the approach of ever new beginnings. After all, time offers the space to change, improve and above all reinterpret what already exists. The desire to realise what 'does not yet exist' is, according to Bloch, the essential characteristic of all living things. It pushes man forward to break the existing, the status quo, again and again. A comforting as well as hopeful thought.