Time is the one gift all creatures share, yet it's often the one thing we need most but don't have. It is as endless as the universe, but we have only one small glimpse of it.

That is the type of thinking that goes along with a linear view, a thought process that begins at point A and moves to point B and so on. It's the popular viewpoint of the modern world.

Our popular view on time is much different from that of our ancestors, though. Their view of time was cyclical; and some cultures today retain this idea. If you look at the Maya, the Hopi, and the Hindu, to name a few, you'll quickly be faced with a time cycle, rather than a timescale. The central idea here is that everything repeats in history-what has come will come again, in some fashion or other. This is directly linked to the belief in reincarnation, which is shared by many religions. There is evidence to lend credence to the cyclical view of time; one in particular is the Mayan prophecy of the earthquake in Mexico City in 1991. This prophecy was based on the Mayan calendar, and the earthquake happened centuries after the collapse of the ancient culture.

Whether we view it as linear or cyclical, all cultures of all eras seem to have a quiet but powerful fear of time. In time, we will die. In time, our culture will exist only in history books. In time, there will be only dust. But there is a hope that resides with that fear. For in time, a new day will inevitably come. In time, new life will spring from the ashes of the old. In time, our children will inherit the world.

What is time? Time is what you make of it, ultimately. But it is a forever humbling thing: the more we seek to master it, the more time proves to be beyond our control. And in that struggle we have with time, one can glimpse the beauty and the gift of life itself.

Learn more about this author, Jason Lusk.
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