Time-Our Most Precious Commodity?

Time is running out on 2010.

And time only runs one way.

Is this a true statement? I think so. A scientist I've enjoyed reading has posed this question: If time travel is possible, why have we never seen a person from the future in our time? We think about traveling back in time (the medieval time period seems to be popular, though personally I would not want to live then). But I can't think of a story where someone from the future traveled back to our time. Perhaps this is because we don't know what type of life this person from the future would live, whereas we know a lot about how people in the past lived.

The other reason I don't think time can be changed is because it is a man-made construct. The earth twirls around on its axis without regard to today, yesterday, or tomorrow. The rain falls, plants and trees grow, the seasons change - all without worrying about the concept of time.

But man has, over the centuries, constructed and measured time to provide a framework for living life. Not so much to tell us when it's time to wake up or go to bed. These things we know by the position of the sun in the sky. But measuring time tells us many important things. How far have we traveled (in a time when distance wasn't easily measured)? Ships at sea used time in calculating longitude (poorly, but it helped).

People used time to fix certain ceremonies in place (though many of our fixed dates today were originally established by seasonal events – for example the winter or summer solstices). But the concepts of days, months and years took scientists years, centuries actually, to figure out. Even now, we need a leap day every fourth year to account for the vagaries of the earth's revolutions around the sun. 365 days is not a perfect measure of one year. But centuries ago, the calendar used to be off by several days each year, and in a relatively short period of years, the seasons would be totally off-kilter.

I read a quote recently from someone who said, under the age of 25, the most precious commodity to a single person is sex. After the age of 25, the most precious commodity to anyone is time. What do you think?

Happy New Year to all our readers!!!!!