Elstro

Chronophobia is the fear of time, or more specifically, time passing. Apparently it is most prevalent in prison inamtes with long sentences. Basically, it generates feelings of fear, anxiety and short breathing at the prospect of time passing. Otherwise known as going ‘stir-crazy’. I think I developed a slight case of this in the summer of 2008, after a seedy event in my life cause me to have a Getrude from Hamlet moment – it forced me to look totally into myself and I saw the “black and grained spots”  i.e was absolutely horrified by what I saw.  Even an episode of Jonathan Creek delved into this curious phobia – a chronophobic character played by Dermot Crowley in a 1998 episode (“Time Waits For Norman”) actually removes hands off clocks and concocted an elaborate scheme in order to give himself “more time.” Even David Renwick’s brilliant dialogue perfectly encapsulated the concept of the phobia:

“Time? It’s slipping through out fingers…faster than ever….time can never be reclaimed. What is the past..where does it go?” (paraphrased-ish)

Which is obvious – time can indeed be never reclaimed.

“No point raking over the past.”

“Stop living in the past”

“You can’t change the past!”

“Get over it.”

All of the above may be true, so these all being the case, why are we all guilty of doing them? You can’t go back in time. Yet people always look to the past almost out of desperation when their world comes crashing down around them. Like inEastenders or any soap, say some character has an affair, one of the first lines they are guaranteed to utter is “If I could turn the clock back, I would.” Wouldn’t it be the answer to so many of our problems if we could? We’d all love to have a time turner like in Harry Potter. I know I would.

I myself spend, and have spent a great many years with my head buried in a sandpit of “What If”s. What if I’d got off my backside sooner and realised that at 16, most other gays go out and fuck everything in trousers for example? What if I’d realised that not everyone at school was out to get me? What if I had done this? Then this would have happened…the list just goes on and on. For me, hindsight is a curse and frankly I’d be better off forgetting everything. One thing I’ve always been guilty of is judging people on their own pasts and usually flying into a jealous rage because they have a more interesting past than me. All I have to show for my 21 years on this earth is a string of missed oppertunities, failed auditions and jobs, and a sexual past even the most repressed gay would sneer at. But does this really matter in the here and now?

I know damn well I can’t turn the clock back. I can’t go back five years, bleach my hair and start advertising myself as the newest boi/chicken on the gay scene. Nor could I go back fifteen years and realise that kids make friends when they start school, not running around the playground in their own little world. Not just that far back  - I even fume at recent events such as “what if I’d put my camera in my pocket, least it wouldn’t be sitting on my table with a buggered screen”. But the sad fact is, yes, the past does matter. Because the past has shaped me into who I am today. And I don’t like what I am today. So I almost explode with frustration at my past self because it could have been a whole new kettle of fish had I stopped and realised what was happening in the REAL world, not just my own.

But yet, I don’t get people firing 20 questions at me for what I did six months ago, nor do they tell me they can’t have anything to do with me because of what I did on 22 October 2004. (Nothing noteworthy probably – knowing me probablpy another wasted day in front of a screen. YAWN.)

So to conclude another day’s innate ramblings. Yes, the past does have a meaning. You only have one shot at life. Therefore you should get the most out of it. Otherwise you will end up a sad and bitter old grouch. Just like me.