The name of this blog, Dr Timepass
was something I came up in my first year college for a nerd band, we thought it
was geeky enough and also had a little word play involved. We thought Time
would eventually pass and swallow if not solve everything. It’s not much, but if you had academic and
romantic setbacks early in college, then this line can mean a lot. We would
live strong thinking about the future; thinking that these times would just
pass.
Can time really heal? I always
doubted.
Most of my learning and
revelation happens at work, a certain Wednesday of March 2012 was something similar.
The wooden wall décor in the meeting room of 8th floor reminded me
of a bed time story my father would tell me when I was little.
I’ll try to keep it short :D
The story is of a young boy. He was
a very mischievous and rather rough sort of a kid. He would fight with his
friends at school, knock things off shelves in grocery stores and things like
that. His father would be badly hurt by the complaints brought by the other
people in the neighborhood. But he never raised his voice to scold or yell at
his son. Instead, he went to the market and got a plank of plywood and a
hundred iron nails. He called his son and explained.
‘Look son, every time I get a
complaint from someone I will hammer a nail into this board and at the end of
the week, you can come see how many complaints I got and decide what you want
to do about it’
The son being his rough and unruly-self
walked out not bothering about it.
As days turned into weeks, the father
would do his hammering of nails as the complaints increased. The boy never came
and saw the plank.
After a few months, the father
was shocked and hurt to see that the plank was full of nails, and his son had
never once come to see the plank.
The father went to his son and
called him to see the plank. On seeing the wooden plank packed with hard iron
nails something struck in him.
He would eventually realize his
bad deeds and turn to the ways of good. His father would then tell the boy that
it was never late to correct his mistakes and tell the boy that he would remove
a nail whenever someone came around to praise the boy.
So, in time the boy turned to the
ways of being good and earned a lot of love and respect. His father would also
be happy on receiving praises of his son and would remove a nail each time.
When all the nails were removed
of the plank, the boy stood by his father proud chested and asked what his
father thought of him now. The father being a man of intellect, told him
‘Observe closely, all the nails
have been pulled out, but have the holes been filled?’
The boy would hang his head and
then look up in remorse.
‘What is once done cannot be
undone. No matter how hard you try, the holes cannot be refilled.’
It brings us back to Dr Timepass.
Is it really impossible to fill some holes? Does that mean the phrase “time heals”
is bull crap?
Ah time, so fascinating, so frightening,
and so precious. I just wish I have enough time to fill those holes.
