They say that time is relative. That is true, depending on the value
you put into it.  Five minutes can make the world of difference to
someone who's just missed the plane.  Being stuck in a traffic can
seem forever if you're late for a meeting with an important client.
While a week is a mere wink of the eye when you're enjoying a holiday
of a lifetime.

As a matter of fact time (that is to say, reality) according to
Einstein's theory, is relative, in that it requires a subject that
enables the probable to become the particular, through conscious
attention.  Light is both a wave and a particle, depending on the
circumstance.  A universe of countless rubber balls has no meaning
unless there is an observer that focuses on a one particular ball.
That ball becomes real.

Moreover, according to Einstein, time is just another dimension; a
fourth one after the three dimensions of breadth, height and length.
It doesn't even move in a straight line.  It bends: which means if you
curve it enough you can actually even go back in time or turn it
inside out.  You can even enter a parallel universe as you shift from
one parallel reality to another.

Actually this is not as convoluted as it sounds.  We can all have
different experiences of time in this same three dimensional world of
hours that have nothing to do with the mathematical divisions of time
of sixty minutes making one hour, twenty four hours making a day,
seven days making a week etc.

As we have shown, the meaning of time depends on it's value to the
individual in question.  Time is suddenly a lot more precious when the
doctor tells you you only have six months to live.  While it may not
mean very much to the normal healthy person, even though they might
get knocked down and die the next day.

May be because of this people say that time is money.  The less of it
you have the more precious it becomes to you and the more desperate
you are to own it.  You feel either you're forever chasing it or time
is always chasing you in one mad circle.

Here in Jakarta the days for me go by as if there are only a few hours
in the day as opposed to 24 hours.  Come Wednesday it might as well be
Friday and before you know it it's the middle of the year already,
which might as well be Christmas.  Time probably bends a lot more
here, making the beginning of thw day closer to the end.

In Copenhagen where I spent over a week in their early part of Summer
I felt something which I hadn't experienced since childhood.  The days
seemed long and there are so much that could be done, all in a timely
pace without time always snapping at your heels.

For a start the sun in the early month of June sets around ten o'clock
in the evening, stretching itself until the peak of Summer when the
division between darkness and light is very narrow indeed.

Coupled with an apparent lack of pressure to be active (normal
offices, museums and shops close religiously at five during the week
and don't open at all on Sundays) there is not much for the visitor to
do other than walk the cobbled streets of the Danish capital or while
one's time at a restaurant over a cup of tea and literally wait for
the sun to go down.  Then it is a short hop on a bus that navigates
through smooth traffic or a pleasant and leisurely stroll on wide
pavement to one's hotel.

In a life where I normally have to create time in order to make room
to accommodate all my time consuming activities, to be able to feel
time moving at an almost lackadaisical pace to a point where it seems
to cease moving altogether, I must say, is a luxury.

Compare it with my typical day in Jakarta.  My need for time to pack
in all my activities has gotten to a point that I don't fret over the
'macet' anymore.  Between reading and answering emails on my
blackberry, instant message colleagues, mobile chatting with friends,
trying to read the newspaper, putting on my lipgloss and get my face
fixed for the office while trying to keep up with current issues on
the radio, I almost even feel sorry when, close to an hour later, I
get to the office.

Then the routine begins.  If there's a show I have to host, then half
the day is practically gone already.  If there are meetings, then they
gobble up every available minute even as I multitask, conducting
parallel meetings via SMS or chat.

Precious moments to myself such as the lunch break or bathroom breaks
are rare commodities that still leave me connected whether to the
virtual world or parallel universe of planning and mental acrobatics
of what ifs and what should have been...

But I'm not complaining.  A brief respite from chasing time is well
and good - for a short time - but what makes it valuable is the
feeling that time is precious and our time on earth is a privilege.

Desi Anwar
Senior Anchor &
GM Marketing and Business Development
Metro TV, Jakarta