One Saturday afternoon, my husband and vegetated and watch a dreadful movie called “In Time “(released October 2011) . The theme of the movie is that time is literally money. In this science fiction thriller,
In 2169, people are genetically engineered to stop aging on their 25th birthday. Everyone has a timer on their forearm that shows their remaining time, when it reaches zero the person “times out” and dies instantly. Time has become the universal currency, transferred directly between people or stored in capsules. The country is divided into areas called Time Zones; Dayton is the poorest, a ghetto where people rarely have over 24 hours on their clocks. The richest area is New Greenwich, where people are wealthy enough to be effectively immortal.
As explained in the summary:
In a future where time is money and the wealthy can live forever, Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) is a poor man who rarely has more than a day’s worth of life on his time clock. When he saves Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer) from time thieves, Will receives the gift of a century. However, such a large transaction attracts the attention of the authorities, and when Will is falsely accused of murder, he must go on the run, taking the daughter (Amanda Seyfried) of an incredibly wealthy man with him.
Time is literally the currency. To make a phone call on a payphone ( a bit dated!), it will cost a minute. To take a bus it may cost two hours. People “earn” time by working or they can get a “loan” of time by going to a time lender. Or someone can give them a “gift” of time. As with today, there is also inflation so that what costs 90 minutes yesterday, may now cost 120 minutes today. It is a way for the “timekeepers” or the authorities to control the population. Everyone cannot live forever as then the world would be overpopulated. And just as today, there are classes: the poor have verry little time stored up while the wealthy may have decades if not centuries stored in their digital timers. And eventually, the timer will reach zero and the person will be “timed out” and die. And thus, there is population control.
Even though the movie was bad (37% on Rotten Tomatoes), I kept watching it for its allegorical meaning. While we do not have digital timers embedded in our forearms, we do have a finite or limited amount of time in which to live our lives. We have “internal “ timers. And that amount of time differs with each of us. As with the “wealthy” in the movie, some of us may have lots of time or be able to “buy” time by having the best medical care and treatment and having the luxury of being able to take excellent care of ourselves. And, as with the “poor” in the movie, some of us may not be so lucky to live long and healthy lives.
Throughout the movie, the characters would suddenly gain time and would just as suddenly lose it; even counting down to a matter of seconds before their digital timers were replenished. There were also “thieves” who would “steal” time. And so, in real life- we can suddenly gain time; we can suddenly lose time and we can have near death experiences.
In sum, while this movie was really bad, it poignantly noted that time IS indeed the true currency of our lives and that it is short. We should make the best use of it as we will never really know when our hidden/internal digital timer will run out and we will be “timed out”.
As this is supposed to be a blog about mediation, the point is simple: don’t waste time litigating; mediate the dispute to resolution and move on. Spend the currency of time on something much more valuable than an ephemeral dispute.
…. Just something to think about.
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