If you push any button long and hard enough, eventually it’s going to go out of order. Whatever you are pushing will stop (which isn’t completely true, because everything moves according to its volume, pressure, rotation and vibration; there are always internal degrees of freedom). A watch that can stop time is theoretically possible (inasmuch as anything is possible “in theory”) –and I want one. I want a watch that can create time by stopping the universe at my whim and leisure. At first, I’d be content with just one more hour of sleep, but eventually I’d tack on another hour for wakey-time. Pretty soon, I’d be up to 48-hour days and 48-month years and 48-year decades. I’d have time to work and finish my studies. I’d have time to be with friends. I’d talk to my family. I would use the same tea bag over and over until the string finally breaks. I’d make daily comics. I’d do something with my hair. I would become more generous. In the natural order of things, I’d be the one pushing the damn buttons (instead of the other way around).
And since you know you cannot see yourself,
so well as by reflection, I, your glass,
will modestly discover to yourself,
that of yourself which you yet know not of.
Quotation from William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II
