The news of my 20 year high school reunion back on Monday got me to thinking about how we perceive time differently as we age. Then I remembered the song Time by Pink Floyd, 4th cut on Dark Side of the Moon, is about that very topic.

Read the lyrics and think about them. If you’re nearing 40 like me, this song probably means something very different for you now than it did when you were much younger.

Time
(Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour)

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun,
but it’s sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time has gone, the song is over,
thought I’d something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.

there is enough treachery, hatred, violence,
absurdity in the average human being
to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man
the average woman
beware their love

their love is average, seeks average
but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their
hatred to kill you, to kill anybody.

not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy
anything that differs from their own

not being able to create art
they will not understand art

they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world

not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you

and their hatred will be perfect
like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

–Charles Bukowski, 1966