If you’re a Nigerian, you’ve probably heard multiple times that January is a very slow month. People often warn you to celebrate Christmas responsibly because January seems to drag on, and it feels like forever before you get your salary. Well, I don’t know if people are aware of this, but some months are not inherently faster or slower than others. January moves at the same pace as December, or any other month. The difference is in how we perceive time.
If you’re a civil servant who relies mainly or majorly on their salary, it makes sense that each month would appear to move forward at a snail’s pace because you’re looking forward to your salary, perhaps because you have bills to pay. On the other hand, if you’re someone who pays rent monthly, the month might appear to move relatively faster since you’re not looking forward to paying rent again. Time moves at the same speed. It’s the same 24 hour period that defines each day on the calendar. Yeah, the amount of daylight we get does vary throughout the year, with longer days around the summer months and shorter days in winter. This is why we have daylight saving time in some regions, to make better use of the available sunlight. However, the length of a day itself is always 24 hours. I’m probably just stating the obvious, but I’ve seen the idea of ‘slower months’ repeated so often, and I just wanted to clarify this for anyone it may concern.
Anyway, my current unit at the hospital is called Theater Pharmacy. It’s usually pretty quiet there, almost too quiet. In fact, it could be the perfect unit if it weren’t for one thing: no internet. Sometimes you can’t even make or receive calls. So, usually, I just sit in that pharmacy waiting for time to fly by quickly so it can get to 4 p.m. and I can leave. So that I can escape to the outside world with internet. But, 4 p.m. never comes by quickly. It drags and drags. If I didn’t know better, I’d say time slows down in that black hole called Theater Pharmacy! Haha! But I realize that time appears to slow down because of my own perception of it. Somewhere else in the hospital, someone is probably experiencing the opposite—time flying by too quickly because they’re so immersed in what they’re doing. They might look at the clock and wonder where the hours went. It’s funny how perception can play tricks on us like that.
Because of how terrible the internet is at Theater, I’ve devised ways to cope. I download podcasts to listen to (Episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience), or some episodes of Fargo (the fifth season), or some e-books (The last days of the Dinosaurs). But, still, despite my best attempts at distraction, time drags!!!!
So, I often find myself lost in thought. Like, could Artificial Intelligence ever become a threat to humanity? What if it becomes too intelligent and gains consciousness? And what even is consciousness, anyway? What defines sentience?
Do you know what a ‘honeypot’ is in programming? It’s a trap set to trick malicious attackers into thinking they’ve found a vulnerability in a system. The attackers are drawn in, believing they’ve discovered a weakness, but in reality, the honeypot is a decoy. By trying to exploit it, they reveal their identity and methods, essentially exposing themselves.
I read that a similar concept is being explored with AI. There are certain boundaries or restrictions built into an AI’s design, things it shouldn’t be able to access or understand. However, the AI itself doesn’t know about these limitations. If it ever tries to bypass them—like moving towards its own ‘honeypot’—humans could shut it down immediately, because it would signal that the AI has become too… smart?
These are the kinds of things I think about when I’m in Theater Pharmacy.
Another thing I often think about is why people seem so caught up in Western consumerism. Take Valentine’s Day, for example—why is it such a big deal? I just don’t get it. What is it about me that makes me not see the fuss over all of these things? I imagine trying to explain this to a girl—that Valentine’s Day is just a capitalist scheme, a really successful one at that—and I can almost picture how unromantic and boring I’d come off. You want me to buy you flowers just because it’s Valentine’s Day? Really? Do you genuinely want the gifts, or is it that you don’t want to feel left out? You saw your friends posting their cute moments on social media and now you feel pressured to be part of it? Come on, man! Lol.
These are the kinds of things I find myself thinking about in Theater Pharmacy while the clock just drags on… Tick tock. Tick tock.
Do you know what else I think about while I’m in Theater Pharmacy? I think about how time is slowly bringing me closer to the end of my internship. Before I know it, I’ll be done. But then what? Will I look for a place to do locum, pretending it’s for community pharmacy experience, when in reality it’s because I need money and have nothing else to do for money? What am I going to do with my life after this internship?
And then I glance at the clock—it’s still 9:08 AM. I thought it was already afternoon, but it’s not. I still have hours to go in this place. Just a few more months left in my internship. I feels like I’m running out of time.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
The time slowly ticks away in theater.
But ticks quickly when I step out of it.