Time slips through your fingers like an eel
From the film Winter in Sokcho (2024) on Mubi.
Time is so cruel. It slips through your fingers like an eel.
Yeah!
When I read these words on the screen while watching the film (with English subtitles), I paused the movie to contemplate what they conveyed.
My reverie brought up thoughts about how, nowadays, I sometimes consider starting something and decide not to because I know I won’t have time to see it through to the end.
(Recent example: Starting a long book, trying to learn a new language, & cleaning out the storage room in my basement.)
I don’t think this happened to me when I was younger, or if it did, it didn’t happen as often as it does now. The reason for this: when I was young, I could honestly tell myself I had a lot more free time and a lot more tomorrows… Saying “I’ll do X later” or “I’ll get to X tomorrow” wasn’t necessarily a lie.
Now, experience has taught me that whenever I think I’ll get to something later or tomorrow, I quickly realize that’s probably not true. I recognize that sentiment as an appealing fiction, but a fiction nonetheless. I’ve come to really experience, acknowledge, and know that time slips through my fingers like an eel.