The watched pot never boils

There is a old idiom that says the watched pot never boils. Time is a very interesting concept. If we could go to a rock or a tree and ask it to tell us of its life would it be similar to a story that a person would tell. 

This afternoon I was writing a story that would probably take a couple minuets to tell but was a somewhat fanciful record of the history of the Bow and arrow, some what embellished with the star for most of the story and the creator of the bow being Bob the Caveman. This story that would take only a few minuets to tell was taking be longer to write and actually spanned many centuries. So what is time?

I look back at my life and think how fast it went. The year spent in the South Pacific is but a few memories that I have in my head. I cant recall what happened for every minuet there just the "good" parts. But I was there for an entire year.

Come to think of it I don't think I could even give an accurate minuet by minuet record of today. I can tell you the "good" parts or the more significant moments. What I ate, even what I accomplished for the most parts but not every minuet. 

Thinking of the idiom of the pot came in part from an episode from Star Trek TNG. Now I do admit to being a Sci Fi fan and also a Trekkie and remember the episode where Data was trying to understand this idiom. He was using is internal chronometer or in simpler language clock to time the event. Having that internal clock allowed him to keep that log of what he did minuet by minuet and so time was something that was regular. 

Not having that internal clock and large resource for remembering I wonder how much I am forgetting and missing out on. I realize that for the most part we would rather not remember every burp we had or every time we sneezed but how do we determine what is valuable to remember and what is not. 

So the idiom being the root of this tangent, possibly to come back full circle; for what is a tangent than a deviation from a curved path. What are we doing till the pot boils? Apparently watching it does not impart any special power or in this case heat to the process what does watching do but let moments go by that do not have those significant moments that will not be counted among the "good" and fade away into oblivion. 

If that tree or rock could talk. How long would that story last? Will it only remember the time the big windstorm came or the time someone took an axe to its neighbor or maybe the time it rolled down the hill and gathered no moss;-) Or will they remember every day of their story, and take a life time to tell it because it is still happening. 

What I really want to know is what's cooking in the pot anyway?