How to Stop Time

First line: ”I am old.”

Last line: ”The future is you.”

Time is a tantalizing and utterly fascinating concept. An ever present concept constantly affecting us, but still so elusive to our understanding of its constituents.

Traveling in time is a recurring theme in many books and movies. This book is not like those.

How to Stop Time explores more the intricacies of eternal life. At first glance, it may seem tempting, as I think most of us in periods experience a fear of dying, and stress that life is too short. Maybe there are so many things we would want to experience, or maybe we want to be able to explore different life choices to see where they would have led us.

Tom Hazard, in the book, as an ”alba”, does age, just at a very slow rate. Born in the 16th century, he has seen it all, and lived through some of the most defining moments of humanity’s development.

As a story, the book reminds me of both Forrest Gump, Benjamin Button and Sophie’s World, but the story is not what keeps me reading. It’s how Haig so smoothly weaves in little lessons of philosophy and strategically places small intellectual challenges regarding life, age, death, time and love throughout the story.

We not only follow Tom back and forth from his experiences of living in over four different centuries, as well as present time. We also get to feel his struggles, the fear of being ”different”, the pain of outliving people he loves and trying to find a meaning in an existence where everyone else’s full lives are nothing but fleeting moments for him.

I think a pretty good way of defining a ”good book” is how long it stays in your mind after reading it. I have a feeling this will turn out to be a very good book.

Favorite passages:

”You are not the only one with sorrows in this world. Don’t hoard them like they are precious. There is always plenty of them to go around.” (p.126)

”…I was starting to feel that you couldn’t do mathematics with emotions. In protecting yourself from hurt you could create a new, subtler type of pain. It is a dilemma.” (p.132)

”The human mind has is its own…prisons. You don’t have a choice over everything in life.” (p.152)

”I have only been alive for four hundred and thirty- nine years, which is of course nowhere near long enough to understand the minimal facial expressions of the average teenage boy.” (p.173)

”Free will might be overrated. ’Anxiety,’ Kierkegaard wrote, in the middle of of the nineteenth century, ’is the dizziness of freedom.’ (p.233)

”Love is where you find the meaning…You can take all the years before and since and weigh them next to those, and they wouldn’t stand a chance.” (p.296)

”That’s the thing with time, isn’t it? It’s not all the same. Some days - some years - some decades - are empty. There is nothing to them. It’s just flat water. And then you come across a year, or even a day, or an afternoon. And it is everything. It is the whole thing.” (p.296)

“And, just as it only takes a moment to die, it only takes a moment to live. You just close your eyes and let every futile fear slip away. And then, in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself: who am I? If I could live without doubt what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being fucked over? If I could love without fear of being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking of how I will miss that taste tomorrow? If I could not fear the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live?

So, it took me only 437 years, but I finally realised how to go about answering all this. I didn’t quite know what the answer was but I knew the process. In a way the process was not knowing the answer, and being fine with that.” (p.314)

”’Love is a motherfucker.’

I sigh. ’Of course it is.’

’You should just shoot for it. Tell her you messed up. Tell her why you messed up. Be honest. Honesty works. Well, honesty gets you locked up in a psych ward. But sometimes it works.’

’Honesty is a motherfucker,’ I say, and she laughs.

She goes quiet for a little while. Remembers something. ’I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older.’” (p.317)

”History was - is - a one-way street. You have to keep walking forwards. But you don’t always have to look ahead. Sometimes you can just look around and be happy right where you are.” (p.321)

”I love her so much. I could not love her more. And the terror of not allowing myself to love her has beaten that fear of losing her.” (p.325)

”There is only the present. Just as every object on earth contains similar and interchanging atoms, so every fragment of time contains aspects of every other…

It is clear. In those moments that burst alive the present lasts for ever, and I know there are many more presents to live. I understand. I understand you can be free. I understand that the way you stop time is by stopping being ruled by it. I am no longer drowning in my past, or fearful of my future. How can I be?

The future is you.” (p.325)