Time – Significance and Importance

Time is perhaps the only thing that keeps ticking and never stands still, even for a moment. It never has and never will. They say that time and tide wait for none, but a tide may ebb, while time never tarries or moved backward.

Time can be measured in seconds, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries or millenniums. Importance of time varies from event to event, person to person and from period to period. To a person taking part in a 100 metre sprint the value of a fraction of a second may be equivalent to the value of five minutes for a person giving a three hour examination, although a fraction of second and five minutes are not comparable.

Each one of us treats time in our own different way. Some are always running against time while some of us go through life as though we have all the time in the world. On certain occasions you may feel that time just does not pass, while at other times you may feel that time is fleeting past in the wink of an eye. Some of us treat time with a lot of patience, while others are impatient to get more out of time and are always rushed.

One may be impatient to stop at a traffic crossing for two minutes when the traffic light turns red and gets tempted to cross before it turns green, but may think nothing of spending hours sitting in front of the TV watching a programme of no consequence or sit in a cinema hall for three hours watching a senseless film.

Each one of us has a fixed amount of time available to us.

If an average man lives for 65 years, he has 780 months or 23741 days at his disposal. Come to think of it, it is not a very long period of time that we stay on earth on human form, especially if you compare it to the billions of years that life has existed on earth. Yet, however, at times a few seconds seem like eternity.

Notwithstanding the insignificance of our existence in relation to time, what is important is to ensure that we leave a mark in the limited time that we have. It is our actions and deeds and how we utilize our time to make the world a better place and whether or not we leave an impact for posterity, which really matters. Millions of people are born, go through life, and pass away into the void, unsung, unheard, unnoticed, yet there are those select few, who are remembered through generations for their words, their deeds and their actions.

Ram, Krishna, Jesus, Allah are venerated as Gods and have tremendous impact on society. There are others like Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Chaucer, Einstein, Wright brothers, Madame Curie, Mahatma Gandhi, and a host of other renowned people who will always be remembered for their contribution to society. What is important is the impact. You have to leave your imprint on society, to be remembered, otherwise, time will ensure that you pass off into insignificance.

 

Random Thoughts on Education

The Minor Exams started today. How was the first day of the Minor Exams? I am sure everyone would have done well. The random pictures on Facebook are ample proof of the way all students were studying. All of you are putting in a lot of hard work we are sure, and you must. Concerted effort at the right time is essential. There is plenty of time to relax, enjoy and have a good time….if you have put in the right effort at the right time.

However, I believe that consistency is more important. If one is regular, if one has understood concepts, if one has learnt with constant practice, if one has experienced things practically in the labs, rather than started memorizing things at the time of the examination, they stand a better chance of scoring well. The ultimate aim of examination is not just to memorize, score well and then forget, but to understand concepts, score well and utilise the knowledge gained by putting it to practical use.

The teachers would have succeeded in their aim if they can make you learn rather than just memorise, because that is what is going to pay you in the long run.  The aim of education is to gain knowledge and not just to pass examinations. Putting your knowledge to practical use is essential. It is only then that you can succeed in your professional life. Getting a degree and becoming qualified is but a stepping stone. 

Getting good marks is essential, but not the ultimate aim of education. If your mind is clear and uncluttered, if you are able to reason well, if you can absorb new ideas and impressions with ease, if you are able to retain what you have studied and correlate different things in a logical manner, if you can draw conclusions by logical reasoning, if you are able to speak with confidence, after your education is done, you are on the path to success in life.

I wish you all the best and hope to see you more knowledgeable and experienced and brimming with ideas and confidence as you pass through the portals of the University. If you are satisfied that you are a better human being, more confident and more knowledgeable after the years spent in the University, the aim is achieved.

Colourless Green Thoughts

One fine day, our English Professor walked into the class and after the formal greeting wrote the following sentence on the Black board. “Colourless green thoughts sleep furiously, while the hay makes sun through the fire in the heights of the ocean.”  After writing the sentence, he stood to one side and started observing the faces of the students. Everyone read the sentence perplexed. There were various expressions on our faces.  We were all trying to decipher what the sentence meant. We took it for granted that if the brilliant professor had written the sentence it must mean something special. After five minutes of reading, re-reading and re-re-reading we were getting nowhere and looked at the Professor for an explanation.

Professor said that he too did not know the meaning.  Grammatically the sentence was absolutely correct. There were no spelling mistakes. Yet there was no meaning that could be ascribed to the sentence.  Then he explained the definition of a sentence.

The sentence is traditionally defined as a word or group of words that expresses a complete idea and that includes a subject and a verb.

The above sentence had all the ingredients of a sentence except “expresses a complete idea”.

This is the most important thing in a sentence.  If the sentence does not express an idea it is meaningless, no matter how grammatically correct it is and if all spellings are correct.

Many of us can write on and on filling volumes of paper without actually conveying anything, while some of us can convey a lot in a small sentence or a paragraph. This is an art which has to be developed with practice. Conveying maximum content with minimum words is what we should aim at.

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