One of the themes of my book is to examine the cliché ‘actions speak louder than words’ from a philosophical perspective. It’s 115 000 words, so it takes a little while. To be fair, it isn’t the only theme. The point is, it got me thinking of other cliches that could be analysed in this way. Which brings me to the topic of this blog—time is also a theme of the book, come to think of it—except that I’m going to try and do it in around 114 500 fewer words. Something will probably get lost in the process. Heigh-ho. This is more of a taster, a soupçon, if you will, of the method. Still, it’s better than nothing. That one’s on the list as well.

Given the constraints of time, let us move quickly to the third word of the expression. Obviously, the gerund ‘timing’ is important, and it is also open to myriad interpretations, but for now let us settle with the definition of the OED—'the choice, judgment, or control of when something should be done’. That is problematic from the start. I mean, do we have a choice in the timing of things? Or any control in them? Believe me, for someone who has just written 115 000 words on, amongst other things, the existential nature of our lives, those are not flippant questions. But I’m trying to be brief here, so enough with the digressions.

Timing is everything. Notice the absence of qualifiers, such as almost, nearly, just about, within an inch, well-nigh, or virtually. It is everything. In which case, surely the question is begged: What else could there possibly be instead of timing that could be considered so absolute in nature? Good question.

What about money? Well, some folks clearly do live according to that principle. But here’s the thing with money. What happens when you don’t have so much of it, and a bill for more than you have arrives at just that moment? That’s bad timing, right? Alternatively, an excellent investment opportunity comes along just when you have the money available to take advantage of it. That’s good timing. In both cases, it’s not the money, but the timing that is the primary factor.

What about love? Hmm. That is certainly worth exploring. Who could really argue with the expression, nay, the cliché, that love is everything? In many ways, it is. However, I can think of one way in my life when it wasn’t. I loved a girl once. She was everything to me. I believe she felt the same way. I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life; the problem was, she was younger than me and at a different point in her journey. She thought she was too young to get married; she had more things to experience before she did that. I said we could go on the journey together, but she wasn’t convinced. The breakup hurt for some time, but in the end, I realised the timing was just wrong. Timing, after all, was more important than love.

What about wisdom? Wisdom knows when the timing is right. What about knowledge? It’s easier to acquire knowledge than wisdom. What about family? Or career? Or destiny? Or fate? Or luck? Location (location, location), skill, practice, experience, contacts, success, failure, ideology, faith. I could go on. I’m sure you could, too. The point is, if the timing is right, all these other things might very well help, but if the timing is wrong, none of these will. This is because timing completes them all. And without it, nothing is guaranteed. Timing, then, is the ontological glue that fixes, grounds, roots, and secures everything else. Therefore, I put it to you that it is the most linguistically deserving of the signified everything.