it sure helps to pass the time

I hear that expression more and more. When people are playing euchre or assembling a jigsaw puzzle or listening to the radio, they say they are passing the time. As if time were something to get through and be done with. But if one regards time as finite, then would one not want to slow it down somehow and savour its every moment? Impossible, of course, but that might be an ideal worth striving for.

Richard B. Wright (Clara Callan)