Days of Our Lives and the Passage of Time
The moral case for being aware of the passage of time.
“Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives...”
These words begin every episode of the show in part because they continue to be true. Life goes on. No matter what happens in our lives, with really only one exception, the next day is always just around the corner. Even in the case of our exception, it's not going to be the end for other people. Some aspect of life continues on even if it's not you. For a lot of people though, we live as if the world is going to end at any moment. Either that or we act as if our lives aren't going to end at all. We like to believe that we have all the time in the world. In reality, it's a bit of a combination of both.
Some lives end too soon while others seem to go on forever. But even within lives which go on forever, each day can feel completely different. One day you think the world is going to end, while the next can feel ordinary and as if nothing special ever happens. This strange reality is something we all deal with differently. Some of us do it really well and other people struggle to just get through the next day without completely collapsing. But in the end, people find a way to do it. We go from little kids where everything is taken care of for us, to teenagers where we try to do things for ourselves, to being completely on our own. If we're lucky we find someone to go through it with and that usually leads to having kids yourself, and then grand kids and if we're really lucky, great grand kids.
Days of Our Lives is very much about how this time passes and the way people deal with it. Over the course of the series, we've seen young people become older and deal with all kinds of problems. Some strange while others are pretty ordinary. Not only that, but they've gone from kids, to teenagers, parents, grand parents and great grand parents. Entire lives have played out and we've seen the descendants go on and go through the same process. The size of it is intimidating to many. Yet in the end it's just people, living their lives and experiencing each moment along the way.
More than that, there are people who have never experienced a world in which it wasn't around. Their own lives on some level mirror this passage of time. Characters who your parents liked when they were young are still around today as the wise older people who pass down their hard won knowledge and hopefully prevent future mistakes. It's a powerful reality and it's important to be aware of just how much life goes by in the ordinary day to day of it all. Yet we hardly ever really notice it. At least not without a reminder of some kind.
Do yourself a favour and check out Days of Our Lives as soon as you can.
You can find Days of our Lives on Peacock in the United States as well as GlobalTV in Canada.