When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather’s and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excruciating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

It was propped against the collar box and I lay listening to it. Hearing it, that is. I dont suppose anybody ever deliberately listens to a watch or a clock. You dont have to. You can be oblivious to the sound for a long while, then in a second of ticking it can create in the mind unbroken the long diminishing parade of time you didn’t hear.

From “The Sound and the Fury,” by William Faulkner

What a terrific writing by a genius like William Faulkner! He challenges the reader to join him in unveiling the most hidden cryptic aspects of subjects that we might think we understand, but we don’t.  In this case, he ventures into time and our obsession with it. “When Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire … I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it.”   Time is just the element in which we wallow in our joy and sadness and play our life scenes as if in a dream. “Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought.”