Midweek pick-me-up: Nina Simone on time

NOTE: This newsletter might be cut short by your email program. [View it in full](.  If a friend forwarded it to you and you'd like your very own newsletter, [subscribe here]( — it's free.  Need to modify your subscription? You can [change your email address]( or [unsubscribe](. [Brain Pickings]( [Welcome] Hello, {NAME}! This is Brain Pickings midweek pick-me-up, drawn from my fifteen-year archive of ideas unblunted by time, resurfaced as timeless nourishment for heart, mind, and spirit. (If you don't yet subscribe to the standard Sunday newsletter of new pieces published each week, you can sign up [here]( — it's free.) If you missed last week's edition — Oliver Sacks on the healing power of gardens — you can catch up [right here](. If my labor of love enriches your life in any way, please consider supporting it with a [donation]( – all these years, I have spent tens of thousands of hours, made many personal sacrifices, and invested tremendous resources in Brain Pickings, which remains free and ad-free and alive thanks to reader patronage. If you already donate: THANK YOU. [FROM THE ARCHIVE | Nina Simone on Time]( [essentialninasimone2.jpg?fit=320%2C318]( “If our heart were large enough to love life in all its detail, we would see that every instant is at once a giver and a plunderer,” wrote the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard as he contemplated [our paradoxical experience of time]( in the early 1930s just as Einstein, Gödel, and the rise of relativity had begun [revolutionizing our understanding of time](. “Time is the substance I am made of,” Borges proclaimed a generation later in his exquisite [1944 refutation of time](. “Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.” If Borges’s words sound like a song lyric, it is because there is something singularly musical about our perception of time — we speak of our daily rhythms, abide by the metronomic ticking of the clock, and feel the flow of time like one feels the flow of a melody. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that the elusive and indomitable nature of time preoccupied not only the twentieth century’s greatest philosophers, scientists, and writers, but also one of its greatest musicians: Eunice Kathleen Waymon, better known as Nina Simone (February 21, 1933–April 21, 2003). [ninasimone_time.jpg?resize=617%2C409] Nina Simone, 1969 On October 26, 1969, at the Philharmonic Hall in New York City, Simone performed a version of “Who Knows Where the Time Goes,” written by the English folk-rock singer-songwriter Sandy Denny and popularized by Judy Collins. The version was released a year later on her live album Black Gold and was later included in [The Essential Nina Simone](. Simone, who was at least as devoted to civil rights as she was to music, considered this “a reflective tune” that “goes past all racial conflict and all kinds of conflicts,” for it deals with the supreme unifying force of all human existence: the shared experience of time’s inescapable flow. She introduced her cover with a beautiful, simple, profound prefatory meditation on time — please enjoy: [aa2e7d0c-5517-4de6-9175-2e8322107826.png]( [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]Sometime in your life, you will have occasion to say, “What is this thing called time?” What is that, the clock? You go to work by the clock, you get your martini in the afternoon by the clock and your coffee by the clock, and you have to get on the plane at a certain time, and arrive at a certain time. It goes on and on and on and on. And time is a dictator, as we know it. Where does it go? What does it do? Most of all, is it alive? Is it a thing that we cannot touch and is it alive? And then, one day, you look in the mirror — you’re old — and you say, “Where does the time go?” WHO KNOWS WHERE THE TIME GOES Across the morning sky, all the birds are leaving How can they know that it’s time to go? Before the winter fire, I’ll still be dreaming I do not count the time Who knows where the time goes? Who knows where the time goes? Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving Ah, but then you know that it’s time for them to go But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving For I do not count the time Who knows where the time goes? Who knows where the time goes? But I am not alone as long as my love is near me And I know it will be so till it’s time to go All through the winter, until the birds return in spring again I do not fear the time Who knows where the time goes? Who knows where the time goes? Complement with [the psychology of how we experience time]( T.S. Eliot’s [timeless ode to the nature of time]( and James Gleick on [how our fascination with time illuminates the central mystery of consciousness](. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( [Like on Facebook]( donating=loving Each month, I spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars keeping Brain Pickings going. For a decade and a half, it has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, not even an assistant — a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor makes your life more livable in any way, please consider aiding its sustenance with a donation. Your support makes all the difference. monthly donation You can become a Sustaining Patron with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a Brooklyn lunch.  one-time donation Or you can become a Spontaneous Supporter with a one-time donation in any amount. [Start Now]( [Give Now]( Partial to Bitcoin? You can beam some bit-love my way: 197usDS6AsL9wDKxtGM6xaWjmR5ejgqem7 KINDRED READINGS: [time.jpg]( [When Did Time Really Begin? The Little Loophole in the Big Bang]( * * * [zadiesmith4.jpg]( [Creativity in the Time of COVID: Zadie Smith on Writing, Love, and What Echoes Through the Hallway of Time Suddenly Emptied of Habit]( * * * [immortality.jpg]( [Immortality in Passing: Poet Lisel Mueller, Who Lived to 96, on What Gives Meaning to Our Ephemeral Lives]( * * * [langstonhughes_ninasimone.jpg]( [Langston Hughes's Ardent Public Fan Letter to the Young Nina Simone]( * * * A SMALL, DELIGHTFUL SIDE PROJECT: [Vintage Science Face Masks Benefiting the Nature Conservancy (New Designs Added)]( [vintagesciencefacemasks.jpg]( ALSO, NEW CHILDREN’S BOOK BY YOURS TRULY: [The Snail with the Right Heart: A True Story]( [thesnailwiththerightheart_0000.jpg]( [---] You're receiving this email because you subscribed on Brain Pickings. This weekly newsletter comes out each Wednesday and offers a highlight from the Brain Pickings archives for a midweek pick-me-up. Brain Pickings NOT A MAILING ADDRESS 159 Pioneer StreetBrooklyn, NY 11231 [Add us to your address book]( [unsubscribe from this list](   [update subscription preferences](