Oops!<br>Johnny was late. His talk was about to start in twenty minutes, and he was still in the City, riding his bicycle through heavy traffic.<br>According to his calculations, he had a good chance of arriving at his local Toastmasters Club in less than twenty minutes if he pedalled with full power. Johnny’s main problem was not the distance, though. He had no idea what his talk would be about. He needed to find a topic and work out his presentation on the way.<br>The talk was supposed to be only five minutes long, but this can feel like an eternity for the unprepared victim. So Johnny’s mind was spinning, and so were his legs. And at the same time, in his head, he was already on stage, doing an improvised talk.<br>“Hello. My name is Johnny, as most of you know. I joined the club a few weeks ago to improve my presentation skills. This is my first talk. And, to be honest, I don’t have a damn clue what I’m going to talk about right now, because I’m totally unprepared. What would you like to hear?”<br>“Go home, idiot!” shouted someone from the imaginary audience.<br>“Alright, this is not going well. I really need a topic,” Johnny thought. “Why do I have to leave everything to the last minute? Everything is so much easier if I do things on time, giving myself enough time to prepare and practise… Wait a minute. This could be a good topic! Time management. Something I already know a thing or two about.”<br>Johnny peeked at his watch. 16 minutes left. Someone honked at him on the road. His bicycle was fast, but 15mph was unbearable for some drivers. The car impatiently accelerated, overtook him, honked again, then suddenly stopped at the red light.<br>“Such an arse! Alright I should take some notes before I forget. What was it? Time management. Being late. Being unprepared. Green. Let’s go!”<br>The traffic started moving, and Johnny was on stage again.<br>“Hello, I’m Johnny. I want to talk about time management. What an interesting term! Managing time. Do we manage time? Is time something that can actually be managed? To find this out, let’s break it down into the words ‘time’ and ‘management’. What is time? … ”<br>“There we go, I’m about to give an unprepared, improvised, abstract, philosophical talk, dissecting time on stage. What a wonderful idea! You idiot.”<br>13 minutes left.<br>“But this is interesting, and it might work. What is time? Is time a thing? Well, what are things? A tree is a thing. Cats are things too. And thoughts. We can say that a thought is a thing, right? Hm, not sure. Thoughts are not tangible. But they are still something. Some thing. Hm. Thoughts are probably things. So what is a thing? Something. Everything. This doesn’t help.”<br>The traffic was gone, and Johnny was cycling through calm streets now, amongst rows of colourful Victorian buildings, and large trees. He felt the wind on his face. Green leaves were dancing on the trees. Somewhere a blackbird was singing. A group of children were walking along the pavement, chatting, probably just out of school. “What a contrast!” thought Johnny. 10 minutes left.<br>“So, hello, I’m Johnny, blah blah blah, I will talk about time. What is time? Stuff happens in time. Like riding a bicycle. Talking. The wind blowing in my face. Hearing a bird singing. These are happenings. Things that have movement. Verbs.”<br>“Hm, that’s good. Verbs! Verbs move. Nouns stay.”<br>“Verbs indicate something that happens in time. In contrast, nouns are static. For example, the word bicycle is timeless. Riding the bicycle needs time, because the legs are pumping, the wheels are spinning, and the bike is moving from A to B. Usually, when something happens, something changes. Change requires time. Nouns live in an eternal, static space, where nothing ever happens. Hm, it’s interesting I said they live. Live is a verb. Hm… Let’s not go down that road now!”<br>Lots of cars on the road again. 7 minutes and 2 miles left. “I wish I could stop time for only a few hours! I could really use that extra time.” Johnny thought. “Would that be possible somehow?”<br>“Hello, I’m Johnny, and I’m fucking late, and I am a moron. I had two weeks to prepare for this talk.”<br>“So, time is about change. And time is also our perception of change. Or is it? Hm. Okay, Johnny, think! Red light… oh ffffff… aargh!!”<br>“Verbs happen in time. Like eating, running, freezing and loving. But what is the most basic verb? The verb of all verbs, the root of all? It is…”<br>“TO BE…”<br>“The verb be is the mother of all verbs. The tree is there. There is a tree. The tree is. The tree exists. Existence is something that happens to the tree. That’s amazing… Being needs time! Being happens in time, so anything, in order to exist, requires time.”<br>“I am.”<br>”I exist.”<br>“I exist in time.”<br>“Time is essential for anything to exist. Nothing exists without time.”<br>“Let’s turn this around! Is there time without being?”<br>“Is there time? Does time exist? If there is time, it exists. Time exists and in order to exist, it needs time. Oookay… Does this mean that time and being is the same...