The brain grows by assimilating
new shapes and patterns
in all the senses and by moving with
the rhythms of the Earth
but withers when imprisoned
where time and worth
are both artificially metered
and equated to one another.

A tired literary barnacle on the 'net
does the math for us:
TIME = MONEY
KNOWLEDGE = POWER.
Power has units of energy per unit time,
which implies that knowledge has units
of energy per dollar.
This in turn implies that
knowledge decreases
as money increases
and infinite knowledge is essentially free.
How, then, can one profit from an
"information age" when faced with the
possibility
that information may truly
WANT to be free?

Was time valued differently in the past?
Attempts to escape this imponderable
equation are invariably futile and, besides,
turning back the clock is a pathetic goal anyway
although this guy from Princeton
theorizes how it COULD be done:
take two cosmic strings (whatever they are),
throw one at the other
at ALMOST (but not quite)
the speed of light (whatever that means),
then dance around the point
where they collide (chanting is optional).
When you complete your circular dance
you will have returned
not only to the same place you started
but to the same time as well.
Although not exactly a
Star Trek fantasy
the temporal boomerang is achieved
at considerable expense:
if you complete your dance
you will destroy the universe.

There IS a penalty for
returning to the past
although less drastic than total annihilation.
When a moment passes it can’t be altered
but it's trajectory through memory CAN be -
unpleasant moments are filtered out
while other moments are retrieved imperfectly
with excessive fondness
if the present seems less in comparison.
Memories aren't allowed to exist
in a human space
but get lost in super-human dimensions
inhabited by superlative creatures:
past heroes are always larger than life
past societies more moral
past wars more glorious
every event magnified
and dipped in the sweet syrup of nostalgia
as we reminisce so hard we break into a sweat.
The "real" past is rendered
permanently uninhabitable
while the "nostalgic" past remains
largely fiction.

There's strange comfort in the belief
that somehow in the past
time was valued differently
but how can we place a value on time
without committing the crime
of placing a value on value itself?
History provides no human-scale examples
so we find ourselves navigating an age where
usefulness is the only marketable skill
(or is marketability the only useful skill?)
our Monets diluted with Prozac
our Einsteins squandered on Wall Street
all watching without interest
as we contort ourselves into
abandoned acquisitive robots.

Enough about them, where does this leave me?
I want Peter Pan's job.
I want Wendy as my girlfriend
if she looks anything like I remember her
on TV
when I was a kid.