Time. The one thing we’re told we all have in common. The ultimate equaliser. A passage that every person experiences — taking us from one moment to the next. We all get 24 hours in a day. 1440 minutes. 86400 seconds. It’s a comforting thought; that whether you’re a millionaire or a university student, the clock will tick forward just the same.
However, this comfort is an illusion. In practice, this so-called ‘universal’ progress of existence bends and contorts in the presence of power. Millionaires, emperors, CEOs, Popes — they all shape how time is structured, used, and even remembered. Time is not neutral. Like all things important, this untamable and ungovernable force that dictates our entire lives, falls at the mercy of the powerful.
I was born in the year 1385.
No, I’m not a time traveller or a character from the Middle Ages. I was born in Iran, where the Solar Hijri calendar governs birthdays, cultural celebrations, and official records. In the Gregorian calendar that same year would be 2006. A disruption of time that shows the true myth of global synchrony.
Across the globe, people live not only in completely different time zones, but entirely different centuries. In Myanmar, the year is 1387, whilst Thailand is now in the year 2568. The Nepali are in the year 2080 whilst Ethiopia only recently entered 2017.
Time, so often imagined as a linear truth and inherently uncontrollable, is in fact foundationally and culturally constructed and imposed. And something that can be constructed? It can also be claimed. Weaponised. Stolen. Given. And in some circumstances, time is rewritten entirely.
The Phantom Time Hypothesis is a conspiracy theory stating that what we know as the ‘Middle Ages’ never happened. The theory describes that Pope Sylvester II and the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III conspired to fabricate the “phantom time” of 297 years — the Middle Ages — in order to place themselves in the year 1000 AD. A political move to improve their prestige and legitimise Otto’s claim to the Holy Roman Empire.
In the years to come this theory has been largely disproven by varying historical and scientific observations. But why has the theory been so resonant if it has been proved fictitious? Because it reveals a cultural truth. History itself, like truth, is vulnerable to manipulation and control by those with power.
The control over time doesn’t only dictate what we remember, archive, and narrate, but extends to clouding our inherent identity. Timelines, calendars, and holidays — they are all efforts made by empires past and governments present to anchor the national identities of masses. In dictatorial and authoritarian regimes, leaders rewrite school curriculums and censor the media to distort the perception of what is real. This distortion leads to identities being pieced together that are shaped completely by the narratives that powerful people want us to think and believe. In this sense, the Phantom Time Hypothesis presents itself as a raw metaphor; the control over time doesn’t just fragment history, it shapes what people believe, their memory — and ultimately, their identities.
In most cases, we may not truly feel the control wielded over time, but in small ways it presents in all paths of life. In corporate workplaces, those with lower positions work their hours dictated by a schedule of their bosses. Their hours are monitored and their time off surveilled and budgeted. In higher levels executives enjoy flexibility and control over time they work; having the power to distribute work and have assistants who manage time on their behalf.
In other parts of society we see celebrities, the ultra-rich, outsourcing their time. Having access to private chefs, drivers, nannies, assistants — resources that allow them to literally gain more hours in their day. With their private jets they bend geography and time zones, compressing their travel time. Their wealth allows access to beauty and health treatments, specialised doctors and longevity research that extends their time on Earth. We see power being used to not only control the function of time, but to also stretch how long it lasts.
So we can see time is everything. It’s the basis of our memory, identity, work, relationships… everything. Therefore, its theft manifests as the quietest form of oppression. A whisper that echoes through the lives of those who stand still in ‘wait’ — in courtrooms, in shelters, in locked-down detention centres watching the world pass them by. Time is drained in ways that go uncounted, undocumented. Bureaucracies and broken systems steal years from people with little to no recourse. We watch the powerful play with the limits of time, stretching and prolonging it to fit their desires, whilst marginalised individuals are forced to live on borrowed minutes, scraping together moments to sustain their survival. In these moments we must ask ourselves: who gets to waste time? And who must account for every second?
There is no way for us to dismantle the structurally unequal systems that seek to extract our time. However, what we can do is live life accounting for every second. Refusing to let time be dictated by profit or performance or the overbearing power that others wield. Our time in life is the most valuable thing we have. Not because it can be counted or controlled but because it can be felt in every moment we live. In shared laughter, moments of stillness, time spent with people we love.
To live with intention in itself is an act of defiance against the control of time. To rest without guilt. To disconnect. To daydream. These moments of ‘wasted’ time are how we resist the control of the powerful.
The measurement of time is not a neutral ticking clock. It reflects a twisted architecture of power and control – where time can be stretched, rewritten and stolen.
But even within this control over time, we can carve out spaces for resistance. To live deliberately — slowing down and reclaiming slow and sacred moments — not for productivity or to satisfy anyone else’s agenda but to regain power over the moments that are completely ours.
