The vital thing is time. It is the fundamental problem of life, around which all metaphysical speculation ought to turn. Time as a notation, as a measurement, is valueless, an artificial invention. The important thing is the becoming, the dynamism. Some arts use time more than others. Painting, sculpture, present a more or less static object. Poetry and music, the cinema, a fluidity absolutely reliant on time for effect. The miracle of photography, challenging time, fixing. Death is simply not becoming, a loss of fluidity. The loss of element of presence. Death kills time and enthrones, enhances place. Life is the gift of consciousness of time. A gift which, once it has been given, cannot be rejected. Awareness is becoming. There is a continual awareness of presence.Could death punish by stopping enjoyment and awareness, which are the benefits of time, and reward by changing time? Awareness can give our highest imagined happiness. We cannot imagine timelessness and unawareness as a higher happiness, since they are conceptions related to our present condition. Given the gifts of awareness of time, it is futile to pursue timelessness, like the mystics. The gift of awareness must be fully enjoyed, since it is the highest potential condition. This belief is necessary, though not absolutely true. It has relation truth. Absolute happiness is timelessness and unawareness, but imperfect organisms cannot apprehend absolutes.

J.Fowles