The philosophers have long argued—as philosophers are known to do—about what time is and what time isn’t.
To some, it’s one of the fundamental building blocks of our entire universe, and along with stuff like distance, velocity, etcetera can be used as an example that other things exist or are parts of each other. In explaining how time “works,” this brand of logician also tosses out the comforting sequential nature of time and how everything flows through it as though time were some sort of train station—parallel strings of events zooming by on similar schedules to our own ribbons of trip-ups and victories.
Night time is the right time. Raybourn hits the lights. Photo: Joe Hammeke
To another group, time is simply an idea that people use to compare or arrange things that happen to them, around them, or near them. Time can’t really be measured or traveled through, they say, because it is an intellectual construct—a figment of our imaginations—that we use in an attempt to understand what we cannot.
Amazing bong hit moments, one and all.
It’s Shmoo time, y’all. And the Gonz pivots. Photo: Ben Colen
The scientists, on the other hand, set out to prove that by measuring the movement of the sun across the sky, the swinging of a pendulum, or indeed themselves as they obsessively record these events, the passage of time can be gauged accurately enough for government work. And praise FSM for that, because if the rest of us were left to our own freestyling devices, time would be based on the length of the line at the DMV or how quickly we eat cheesecake.
Skateboarders, though … we’re all over the shop.
Since the last magazine. Before Koston got on Nike. When Gonz rode Trackers. After Video Days.
Post-street, pre-park, your last board under eight, your first board over ten, after the battery died, when you ran out of tape, since your last post.
Time until you get off work; time it takes to get there; time it takes to learn; time you have until you’re kicked out; time it takes to heal; yes time; no time; go time; time-until-you-get-there-again time.
Jason Adams lifts, folds, and separates … perfectly normal for a time traveler his age. Photo: Jai Tanju
And the scales are all shifting, because at five years old, one year is a full 1/5 of your life; at 25 it’s a miniscule 1/25.
This is taking too long.
Time is money, friends. And we get to spend it however we please—most of the time. Finding spots, learning tricks, farting around, and getting nowhere is the opposite side of the coin for much of each hour, day, week, month, year, and life. Any time you can just kind of tip the hourglass on its side, foul up the flow of things, and throw time around—not like it’s a philosophy or a science, but like it’s lottery winnings—then you can also count time among your blessings.
John Cardiel hits the hip for all eternity. Photo: Jai Tanju
Let the rest of them worry about the debits and credits.
Your time is just that: Yours … to wrinkle, steal, ignore, kill, give away, give into, or amend until it’s real or it isn’t.