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Reader question: What does “Take heed to Father Time” mean? Who is Father Time?

My comments: “Take heed to Father Time” means you’d better learn to take care of your body as you grow older. In other words, you should perhaps stop doing things you did as a youngster, like hopping up and down the basketball court (I have been getting this kind of advice for years, by the way).

Father Time refers to the passage of time, or aging.

The European personification of time came from ancient Greeks and Romans who all had stories involving Father Time as Death. In Greek mythology, for example, Cronus (which is the root of such words as chronology, chronicle, and anachronism) is such a Father Time figure. I’m not going into details because the story of Cronus merits a column of its own, but Father Time came to represent the ultimate destructive force which devours everything (Have you ever heard of the saying: Time devours everything?). In movies and pictures, Father Time, or Death is depicted as an old man cloaked in black clutching a scythe on the shoulder... He’s responsible for ushering the dead from this world to the netherworld, or the afterlife.

Sorry for sounding ghoulish but Father Time is really nobody to be feared. As it is, time is a concept created by man to distinguish the transient from the eternal. And if you’re Taoist- or Buddhist-inclined, you really welcome Father Time for the good services he performs – somebody has to do it, as they say. Kidding aside, imagine how immensely more terrible it would be otherwise if you as a rickety old man gets stuck in this world of poverty and misery for an unchanging eternity…

Anyways, it is pretty healthy to remember the life and death go hand in hand (Father Time is married to Mother Earth, according to legends, another story that merits a column of its own) in the same way that big goes hand in hand with small, good implies bad, moving up the social ladder signifies (and magnifies) falling down from it (once things start to go wrong or come retirement time). That is to say, if you’re not prepared for your downfall when you’re up and giddy, you could feel really downbeat when hard times strike – due to the very contrast.

In short, it’s not at all a bad idea to make an acquaintance with Father Time ahead of time and be casual about it. That way, you know, He may even leave you alone awhile longer because presumably He prefers people who fear Him the most (otherwise what use has He with the scaring scythe).

So, what should you do?

Play with Him. Be good (there’s always others doing the bad, so don’t bother doing it yourself), enjoy life and have fun.

And dare Him: Catch me if You can.

Finally, two media examples of “Father Time”:

1. He is more approachable now, more willing to share his thoughts with strangers. Whether that is an 11th-hour attempt to woo potential job offers, or the mellowing of age, a few minutes spent with (Kareem) Abdul-Jabbar the other day after practice produces several serviceable quotes.

Once upon a time, it was much harder than that.

How he gets across his points as an assistant coach: “It’s not difficult for me to explain but sometimes it’s difficult for these younger players to get it. If somebody is listening, usually good things happen….”

If his career scoring record will ever be broken: “It’s not unbreakable. I thought Karl Malone was going to do it. He got injured. The odds caught up to him. The odds didn’t catch up to me for 20 years. Father Time got me.”

- Abdul-Jabbar does his coaching as Lakers’ assistant, USA Today, June 7, 2008.

2. When Randy Couture fought his first mixed martial arts fight at UFC 13 in 1997 he was considered old for most, if not all, athletic events, especially fighting. Twelve short years later, Couture is still fighting hard and better than ever at the ripe age of 45.

…

Tonight, Couture looks to outrun father time once again when he takes on a fighter who can punch just as hard as Sylvia and who possesses more brute strength than Gonzaga in former NCAA Division I wrestling champion Lesnar.

- Defying Father Time, Long Beach Press-Telegram, November 14, 2008.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.