Dali’s Time
Mick Jagger sang “Time is on my side,” but it didn’t keep him from getting old. The paradox of time is that if we take our eye off it, it flies, yet if we stare at it too long, it crawls. Sometimes we think we have plenty of time, and at other times we wonder where it all went. The paradoxical nature of time is represented by the great Spanish Surrealist, Salvador Dali, in his painting, The Persistence of Memory. The main depiction in this painting is the melting clocks of time juxtaposed against a somewhat barren landscape. Time is running out folks, Dali seems to be saying, so you’d better use it before you lose it. Surrealists are like that. They are preachy about our irrational tendencies without saying we are focused on the wrong thing. We spend so much time rushing through our daily lives we act as if the value of our time is irrelevant. Yet, in the end, time is all we have. As Dr. Seuss so poignantly said, “How did it get so late so soon?” If only we were able to create a “time loop” and repeat our past mistakes until we correct them, like the weatherman Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, then time would be on our side. Until then, we better get on with it so we can enjoy the rest the time we have left.
The Sands of Time are Quick Sand!