“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.”

― Jean-Paul Sartre

I often reflect when I’m alone on the concept of time: how time is measured or how it can be used in conversation. To an astrophysicist, time may be linked to an ever-expanding universe or the distance traveled at the speed of light at approximately 187,000 mile per second. The shortest amount of time ever recorded is a Zeptosecond or the longest, most unimaginable timescale is the Poincarè recurrence time—the duration required for the entire universe to randomly return to its exact current state. These notions represent extreme ways to think about time theoretically.

There is of course the amount of time measured to create the universe (billions of years) or a millisecond (one- thousandth of a second) to decide the victory or loss in athletic competition. And there are the most common ways we measure time—by minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades or centuries.

Beyond measuring time, we can think of time in a more general sense such as a life-time, or daytime. In a meditative practice, we can suspend time or slow down time. We can remember the time we did this or that. You can miss the times when we did this or that. We may remember catching the train on time. Or when in taking a test we are out of time. There’s time and time again. Time of day. Time of year. Nick of time. Time flies. Pressed for time. Some time. Last time. No time. Each time. Every time. Long time. What time? On time. Time together. Time off. Right time. Hard time. Passing time or wasting time.

And then there’s a time when we want to stop time and to live outside time. To give up the obligations we feel we have. To step aside and take a break and relax, to let go of our worries and refrain from participating in a busy life. Recently, I felt this strong urge to take TimeOut from my daily routine and activities, to slow the pace and find a place to live a more reflective and contemplative life.

Today, time out is a precious commodity. Personally, I can spend a third of my waking hours in solitude. I like the time alone. I find it regenerative. It’s good for the soul. I acknowledge that we all are different, yet I think that as a culture, we all can benefit from more time alone.

There’s a revolution ahead. A human revolution. A revolution to reclaim time for ourselves. Time to be alone, without devices, without watches, time to be outside the walls we build. To spend more time outside where the natural environment is an antidote to the spaces we imprison ourselves.

As a young boy, by mother would often punish me by putting me in “Time Out.” As an adult, I don’t regard it as punishment. I think of time out as a blessing.