Where does time go when it’s stolen?
For those who haven’t read Momo, and who have missed the previous article about this magical and surreal book (this will be a series of three articles), please go to the first one to get more information and the first thoughts about the story and its meaning:
As a little girl with no past, no age, and having all the time in the world for herself to give and share, Momo literally owns all of her hours. No one can steal them from her; she gives and shares her time freely, and that’s precisely the reason why she has so much of it. However, as the Men in Grey start to take over the city, stealing time from everyone without being seen or even noticed, Momo realises that her friends, young and old, are starting to have less and less time to share…
“Oh, sorry Momo, I don’t have time to talk right now, I’m busy… maybe tomorrow?” she starts hearing here and there, more and more often each time. But ‘tomorrow’ never comes. First it’s just the grownups, then even the children seem to be constantly busy, hurrying from one place to another. Influenced by the adults’ sudden change of life values, the little ones follow their steps: they start ‘saving time’, and as a result, they no longer have time to play.
Do you find yourself constantly hurrying, counting the hours and even the minutes of your day? Struggling to find enough time to fit everything you want to do in just 24 hours? Cutting down on meaningful activities in order to save some spare time later only to end up having even less time than before? Have you ever wondered why your ‘saved time’ just vanishes? If you have answered ‘yes’ to one or more of these questions, chances are you’ve become a victim of the Men in Grey. Just like it happened to most of the characters in Momo, these time thieves may have been leeching on you without you even realising.
In the book, these ‘time thieves’ take the shape of some mysterious grey-skinned bald men in grey suits and hats. Obviously, in real life they don’t look like that. However, there’s no doubt they do exist, and they’re just as sneaky and scary as they are in the book, once we discover what they’re really doing to our lives. The real Men in Grey can take the shape of otherwise harmless activities that meaningfully take away our time, time-consuming obsessions or addictions, or merely the emptiness in our hearts that makes us feel less alive each day. In this way, minute by minute, they subtly take over our time, and eventually our whole lives, all without us even noticing.
Each person has their own amount of time assigned from birth, which flows from the Source and is only alive while it’s linked to that specific person. Time is released into the world from our very souls, one Hour-Lily at a time. These time thieves sublty steal people’s time minute by minute, second by second, ‘killing time’ in the process—because time dies the moment it’s taken away from its owner. Sound familiar? As Professor Hora says at one point in the story, “Time is life, and life dwells in the heart.” This means that by stealing your time, those invisible ‘time thieves’ are actually draining your life. Are you going to let them do that? How do we stop the Men in Grey from taking over?
Momo had the solution inside herself all along, but she didn’t know it until she she found herself involved in the problem. Then, she realised that her potential went beyond what she thought could be possible… and she did it all in the blink of an eye, timeless action, and without anyone noticing.
Do you want to find out how Momo saved and freed her time and her friends from the Men in Grey? Would you like to do that with the real ‘Men in Grey’ in your own life? Get inspired this summer reading Momo, and tell us how you did it on the comments below!
Hour-Lilies will be distributed among the best commenters… 😉
