It's a Dog's Life

 

My previous post focused on Time Stand Still from the Hold Your Fire record. As with many Rush songs throughout the years, there are recurring themes in Neil’s lyrical reflections on life. Dog Years from Test for Echo is another Time Stand Still.

 In a dog’s life

A year is really more like seven
And all too soon a canine
Will be chasing cars in doggie heaven

 It seems to me

As we make our own few circles ‘round the sun
We get it backwards
And our seven years go by like one

Since time doesn’t stand still for any of us, we often find ourselves asking where the time went. In this juxtaposition, the dog has the shorter life, but experiences it as longer (one year seems like seven); while in actual time, humans have the longer life, but those seven years are experienced as one.

In phenomenology (a branch of philosophy related to hermeneutics) we speak of “time-consciousness.” This is to say that all consciousness is temporal—i.e., happens in time and in relation to time. Everything we experience, we refer to it as before, or now, or something we anticipate to experience coming up. Whether we are thinking about time or not, to be conscious, to be aware, is bound to time.

Beyond time-consciousness (the temporal nature of awareness), we can also think reflexively back on time itself. The former speaks to a specific characteristic—temporality—in the essence of consciousness; the latter speaks to directing our consciousness itself toward time so that we can consider and ponder it. Dog Years is an example of the latter.

Neil, as I mentioned at the beginning, thought about time…well, all the time it seems. In his book, Traveling Music, he said that all his life there were “two little words” that sparked within him “curiosity restlessness, and desire.” What are those words? “Now what?” That was Neil. Always moving forward and looking ahead. Another passage in Traveling Music that many Rush fans are familiar with and often quote is, “How could anyone ever be bored in this world, when there is so much to be interested in, to learn, to contemplate?” Neil’s drive to always discover something new, whether it was an experience or something to learn and think about, is behind that “now what” question. It would make sense, then, to want time to stand still. Or, in the case of Dog Years, to rather

 …be a tortoise from Galapagos

Or a span of geological time
Than be living in these dog years

Tortoises from the Galapagos islands live up to one hundred years and in captivity have even gotten close to twice that. And if you are familiar with geological time you know that these periods can last for millions or even billions of years. How are you going to do and think all the things there are to do and think when seven years of your life seem to go by like only one?

People laugh at me when I have expressed this, but I was quite serious. One day I got to thinking that if there was never another book published, I would never in my lifetime read all the books I wanted to read. Add to that all the books that will be published that I want to read, and the prospect was overwhelming. It was a huge moment in my life when I reconciled my mind to the fact that I would never in a thousand lifetimes be able to read everything I wanted to. It was a big deal. I am just resolved to read as damn much as I possibly can! The same goes for travel, listening to music (on a record or live), or just taking time to “pass an evening with a drink and a friend.”

What it amounts to is time being well spent. I referred in the previous post to Geddy’s thoughts on this in the House of Strombo interview. I also wrote a post on my other website back in April of 2021 called Time Well Spent.

Same as Neil, the older I get and as time moves on, I want more and more to be that Galapagos tortoise or a span of geological time. But I am bound to these dog years, so all I can do is fill them with as much true richness of life as I possibly can. And I will.

(Stay tuned for my next post on Interpreting Rush. I am going to look at another few lines from Dog Years that I hope will add perspective on coming to our “senses” on how we spend time).

Could Time Just Hold Up a Minute, Please?

 

Time (and exactly what it even is) has been a thing for philosophy for centuries. Augustine said that he knows what time is…at least until you ask him. Explaining and defining time sounds easy until you actually try to do it. Aristotle related time to motion (hmmm, could that have inspired Neil to write Time and Motion…). Philosophers in more recent times from Heidegger to Paul Ricoeur to Jacques Derrida to David Wood (to name a very few) have grappled with time. What the hell is it, anyway?

Despite the philosophical conundrums about time, there are certain things in our common experience of time we all share.

When there is something we want in the future, such as when there was an upcoming Rush show we had tickets for, we wanted time to get a move on! Now, however, we Rush fans wouldn’t mind so much if we could turn the clock back and see the boys again. We say there is “no time like the present” to get something done. Regret is sometimes related to time as in we wish we would have had or taken more time with a loved one who is gone. During hardship we can’t wait until such times are over. During good times we wish time wouldn’t move so fast. 

We are fickle about time. We want time to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. But here’s the deal. Time is impervious to our wants or needs. As we get older, we have this sense that time is moving on and it seems to be moving faster. We get a sense of what really matters in life more than anything. And it is not our career or money or whatever. People matter. Experiences matter. This is when we just want time to stand still. I think these considerations moved Neil to write: 

Time stand still—

I’m not looking back—
But I want to look around me now
See more of the people
And the places that surround me now

That first line, which is the title of the song from Hold Your Fire, is not a declarative statement that time stands still, it is more like a request or a command or a plea to time…stand still would ya! Do we want time to stand still because we want to go back? No, not so much. Often it feels life is passing by so quickly that we might be missing things we shouldn’t. We just want to look around. We want to see the people and places all around us. We are not asking time to go in reverse. Just to be still. When the moment passes, it is gone along with the time we might have given to those people and places.

Freeze this moment

A little bit longer
Make each sensation
A little bit stronger
Experience slips away…

We know time has to move on, but it sure would be nice if we could linger just a little bit longer in some moments. I particularly love the words “make each sensation a little bit stronger.” Whether a sensation of our senses or an emotional sensation, oh that time would stand still to make them all a bit stronger to be more deeply embedded in our consciousness, in our memory. 

You see, as experience slips away, over time our memory of the sensation fades as well. We want to hold the reality as close to us, in our very flesh, as much and as long as we can. 

We want to make time stand still.

But here is the thing. We can’t and we know we can’t. What I take from Time Stand Still is less of a plea to time to stand still for us. What is contained in that plea is much more that we are mindful to soak in every good moment and hold it dear. Hold people dear and to make as much of the moments as we possibly can. 

This is so contrary to what is fed to us every day. Be productive, keep moving, get ahead, hustle. Slowing down and just breathing life in is looked down upon. You don’t get to slow down until you have earned it one day in retirement. Well, I disagree with that idea and I think the wisdom in the song Time Stand Still is evidence enough I am right on that point. 

So, no, we can’t make time stand still even though we want to so very, very much. What do we have left? I think Geddy summed it up just right in the recent interview he and Alex did with "House of Strombo." Tune in around the 43 minute, 30 second mark.  In response to a question about he and Alex playing together again, he said, “If I have learned anything from the terrible things that have happened the last few years, it’s the value of time. And make sure you are spending your time the way you want to spend it. That’s a bigger question than whether Al and I will make a record or Al and I will play together or whatever. It’s gotta be about our time and in our lives because it’s precious and, man, it goes.”

Yep. So, spend it well. Even though time won’t stand still, we can still be (from Fly By Night) Making Memories...