Farooq Siddique: Is it the end of time already?

So the summer holidays are here again. It just doesn't feel like a year has passed.

I remember pondering where to take the kids last year, something I never quite figured out, and now this year's holiday has arrived

Perhaps I'm getting busier, both in my personal and professional life, which is certainly true.

But time seems to be passing ever more quickly.

The yearly anniversaries are just coming around sooner and sooner, aren't they?

If you've ever jumped out of a plane, (and of course I'm assuming it was while attached to a parachute otherwise you wouldn't be reading this), then I'm sure you'll know what I mean.

Once the roar of the plane's engine has left you, there is an incredible silence up there.

The view is breathtaking.

You can see the curvature of the earth as you hurtle towards the ground.

And it seems ages away, until you get close to it, and then it just rushes at you.

If you had forgotten to pull the parachute cord a few minutes earlier, now was too late.

But that's what time is like isn't it?

Just when you're relaxed, thinking you have ages, it just seems to run out.

If you take even a cursory look at the various cultures and religions of the world, almost all of them refer to the passing of time quickly as a sign that time itself is coming to an end.

One day, 1,400 years ago, the Prophet Muhammad was walking with his companions.

The Prophet looked up at the Sun about to set on the horizon, and he began to weep.

The companions became concerned and asked him what had upset him.

He pointed up at the sky and replied: "You see the distance the sun has travelled in the sky since it rose this morning?

"That is how long the earth has been in existence.

"You see the distance it has left to set, that is how much time the earth has left."

It is an incredibly insightful statement; in comparing the billions of years the Earth has been around to the scale of the passing of one day, we are at the sunset of the Earth's existence.

According to the Mayan Civilisation, time ends in December 2012.

Indeed, most traditions of the world also have their own predications of the other signs of the end of time; some of them exclusive to their own faiths, some common also to others; environmental, social, economic, education and health, all of them in effect falling apart.

It's a fascinating subject.

Whether you believe in God or not, the fact is the end of time will come.

Everything that has a beginning will have an end.

On Saturday "the last Tommy", the South West's own Harry Patch died.

He was the last survivor of the World War I trenches.

It was described as a war to end all wars.

It didn't. Civilisations rise and fall, and will rise again.

The poor will not always be poor, and the rich will not always be rich.

No matter how bad things are for us today, they can always get worse.

No matter how good things are for us now, we are only on the verge of losing it all.

But we must keep a sense of perspective; one that is summed up simply when the Prophet Muhammad said: "if the Hour (the end of time) comes while you are planting a seed, finish planting the seed."

So then, where should I take the kids this summer?