Some would say that all of humanity can be encapsulated in two concepts: space (x, y, z coordinates do it all) and time (past, present, future).
The classic, Wester children’s story runs “once upon a time… and they lived happily ever after”, and a typical Torres Strait Islander runs “the man set out from [point A]… and reached [point E]”, with no ‘finally’, no ‘the end’, this narrative is about space. Perhaps, for clarity’s sake, I should say that time envelopes space, as space is subject to change over time (and for the time being, forget the vexing question of the static/flux state of a system duality). Some bold remarks about our obsession with time have been chronicled in “The Cronos complex I : an enquiry into the temporal origins of human culture and psychology“. (Is there anything Amazon.com doesn’t stock?)
The panic and anxiety that plague someone’s life can summarily be tied to time as well: smoking shortens your life, quite literally, and time travel may just be possible with some imagination.