Can time be wasted?

I would imagine most people would answer this question with a resounding yes. And I would have been one of those people. But if somebody asked me today, if time could be wasted, my answer would be no, with an asterisk. At least, I think it would be no. It certainly wouldn't be a resounding yes—nothing seems to be resoundingly yes or no, anymore.

Allow me to tell you the story of The Appointment in Samarra. The Appointment in Samarra is a timeless parable set in the vaguely ancient or medieval Middle East. If you've never heard it, you and I will continue a storytelling tradition that has endured for at least a century.

The story begins in the city of Baghdad with a young servant who lives with his master, a wealthy merchant. The servant was in the market one day, shopping for his master, when he was jostled by someone who he thought was a woman. When he turned to face her, he saw a tall, imposing figure cloaked in darkness. The people in the market went about their way, paying no attention. The servant was staring Death in the face.

Pale as a ghost, the servant ran home to his master and begged for one of his horses so that he could get as far away from Death as possible. The master obliged. The frenetic servant rode from noon to nightfall without ever stopping until he arrived at Samarra where he would rest for the night.

The master, who now had nobody to shop for him, went to the market himself. There, he saw Death, just as his servant had described. The master went to Death and asked her why she scared his servant away. Death replied that she did not intend to scare him, she merely wanted to ask him what he was doing in Baghdad when they had an appointment that night in Samarra.

The Appointment in Samarra is a haunting and beautiful parable about fate—one that erases the line between destiny and choice. It reminds us that no matter how deliberate our actions may seem, neither you nor I could possibly know their consequences—not for ourselves, not for others, not for anything. Our movement through life is an unsolvable mystery of how much is written for us and how much is ours to write. Even for the pages we were undoubtedly handed the pen, we can only wonder how freely we chose the words that we did.

If we cannot know the ultimate outcomes of our choices—if fleeing Baghdad delivers us straight to Samarra—then what does it really mean to waste time? Is time wasted truly wasted if it eventually leads us to insight? Is a failed endeavor truly a waste if it changed our path in ways we could not foresee? Perhaps what we call wasting time is just time spent in ways we don’t yet understand. Perhaps the very labeling of time itself as "wasted" might be more a reflection of our own discomfort with uncertainty than any real assessment of value.

We live in a world today that is dominated by a dangerously dogmatic way of thinking, a world where everybody claims to know the truth, no matter how unknowable it may appear. The unreachable truth, however, must be unreachable by design—it is the only rational explanation I can put together. And so, perhaps the better question isn't whether time can be wasted, but whether we’re willing to trust the parts of life that refuse to explain themselves.

So, if you ever ask me if time can be wasted, I'd probably tell you that it couldn't. I'd probably tell you that nothing happens in our lives against the will of the divine. I'd probably tell you that if somebody chooses to waste their life away doing what truly would appear to be a waste, it was probably meant to be. Who hasn't wasted a Saturday and thought to themselves there was no better way to spend it. Who knows what's in store for them later. And who knows what events their wasteful lives will set in motion that will ripple into mine as unexpected waves of bliss.

But if you catch me on a day I'm not feeling particularly fatalistic, you might get a different answer.