Friday, January 27, 2012

Time Will Tell

'I am just going outside and my be some time'
Captain Lawrence "Titus" Oates, March 1912


Just over 100 years ago Oates went outside, telling his companions he may be some time. Time has been a particularly relevant concept this summer, with the centenary celebrations of Amundsen and Scott’s journeys to the pole. We look back on these events as if they happened a lifetime ago, which for us it did. For Antarctica though, the age of exploration happened but a blink of the eye ago.

Antarctica herself is aging remarkably well and her clear complexion betrays nothing of her life history, stretching back to the breakup of Gondwanaland 25 million years ago. 23 million years ago the Drake passage opened up, isolating Antarctica from the rest of the world. Geologists throw terms like ‘million’ around as if they are regular units on a pair of kitchen scales but for most of us such huge time scales are hard to conceptualise. The contrast in scales present in Antarctica also boggles the mind. On the one hand there is the geological scale where 1.2 million either way makes little difference, versus the fleeting lifespan of a nematode on the other.

Not being a biologist, geologist or historian, I had not thought too much about defining time scales before my trip. One thing I did know was that I felt old before going. At 22 I felt like I was past my use by date. Having graduated with an Honours degree, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do next and felt like time was running out for me to decide. The traditional story goes something like this: graduate, get a ‘real job’, settle down, get married, buy a house, start a family. In that order. Everything seemed so linear and planned out and inflexible and I hadn’t really seen anyone buck the trend and champion the cause of any alternatives.

Spending two weeks in Antarctica changed that. I met so many people who were not only the best in their fields but had also had so many other experiences volunteering for search and rescue, working in ambulances, going to music school. All of them were over 25 but they all looked so young. I could have sworn that one of the cooks from McMurdo was not a day older than 19, yet he swore he was 30. It was like a Peter-pan effect, which perhaps it was in a way. Those wintering at Scott Base were acutely aware of the time lost back home by committing to spending 12 months down South. It was like disappearing to neverland, where one day and one night equated to 365 in the real world. People had dared to do things differently though, and that was key.

Perhaps it is only fitting that my watch should have chosen to start ticking backwards whilst out on he ice. Coming home, I realise just how much still lies ahead of me. Sure, I’m smaller than a nematode in the bigger scheme of time, but so long as I stick to inhabiting a human timescale, all sorts of things are possible. I may take me some time to get on the right track, but right now the eyelids have barely started flickering for the next blink.

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