Time
I had an interesting discussion about how different people perceive time with Small Boy the other day.
He wanted me to give him a ride someplace at 8 AM. I was on the NordicTrack at 7:40. I figured I had plenty of time to, oh, check my email, eat some breakfast, take a shower... twenty minutes! That's a lot of time! I went upstairs to take my shower at 7:50. To my dismay, it was 8:10 when I came downstairs. I truly never imagined it would take me twenty minutes. Somehow in my head it takes ten minutes. I think what happens is that I *can* do my morning hygiene routine in ten minutes, but it involves a bunch of short-cuts like not using shampoo in the shower and jumping back into nearly the same outfit I wore yesterday. (I wear so many layers in the winter that I can go days just changing the lower layers!) This time I did a few more procedures (shampooing AND conditioning, shaving AND filing my nails) and - voila - we were late.
I am always late. I literally cannot hold the shape of time in my head the way other people can. They know they need to leave at 8:00, they plan out their minutes beforehand accordingly. I simply cannot do that. All minute quantities translate in my brain to "many". I routinely over-promise my time.
On the other hand, I believe the future is a real place and I know a whole lot about what it looks like. Sometime in November I did an exercise with my family where I said "deep snow and bitter cold will be coming. One day soon it will be here. Is there anything you wish you had when it arrives? Go get your boots and try them on. Find your mittens and hats and gloves. Do you have a winter coat that fits?" You see, I was able, from weeks ago in the past, to correctly predict that it would snow again in New England. This is apparently a supernatural power. For example, and this is what brought up this discussion to begin with, the day we got a foot of snow my husband realized that our snowblower needed maintenance and was non-functional. He was present for that conversation in November, he knew about this impending snowstorm for a week, he's known the snowblower was broken since last March. But at no point did it occur to him that he'd want to be able to use it again. It was one of those future-things that doesn't exist for him. How was HE to know that Future-Him would want the snowblower to work? His brain simply doesn't do that.
So in discussing his two parents with Small Boy we got to wondering if my brain-deadness around what needs to be done in the next few minutes and his brain-deadness about what needs to be done in the next few weeks are related issues. Is it part of the same continuum? People who are perpetually running late because of lack of ability to see the shape of their time budget in their heads are also the people who are heavily future-oriented? And vice versa; the people who totally grok that breakfast will take twenty minutes, who really UNDERSTAND the shape of present time, are the ones for whom the future is a huge unknowable mystery?
My husband is out of town this week. I've hired someone to plow both driveways this year, one of the tenants is going to shovel the sidewalk on Main Street, and Small Boy and I shoveled the amazing amount of acreage that we call sidewalks at our home. (We're in an oddly elongated corner lot with half an acre of yard. We have a LOT of sidewalk with two large street exposures, on a sidewalk that has heavy foot traffic.) At some level is was nice to shovel: the snow was light and fluffy, it was nice to do it silently in the dark, and I could use the exercise. But my back hurts and I'm tired and I'm supposed to be doing some higher-value projects in my "spare" time. All in all i wish I had a snowblower - or someone to shovel my sidewalks. Being me, I'll do what I can to help Future-Me. But maybe I'll just keep shoveling and save myself the cost of snowblower now that I have a guy to plow for me. Besides, shoveling won't take more than ten minutes, right?
He wanted me to give him a ride someplace at 8 AM. I was on the NordicTrack at 7:40. I figured I had plenty of time to, oh, check my email, eat some breakfast, take a shower... twenty minutes! That's a lot of time! I went upstairs to take my shower at 7:50. To my dismay, it was 8:10 when I came downstairs. I truly never imagined it would take me twenty minutes. Somehow in my head it takes ten minutes. I think what happens is that I *can* do my morning hygiene routine in ten minutes, but it involves a bunch of short-cuts like not using shampoo in the shower and jumping back into nearly the same outfit I wore yesterday. (I wear so many layers in the winter that I can go days just changing the lower layers!) This time I did a few more procedures (shampooing AND conditioning, shaving AND filing my nails) and - voila - we were late.
I am always late. I literally cannot hold the shape of time in my head the way other people can. They know they need to leave at 8:00, they plan out their minutes beforehand accordingly. I simply cannot do that. All minute quantities translate in my brain to "many". I routinely over-promise my time.
On the other hand, I believe the future is a real place and I know a whole lot about what it looks like. Sometime in November I did an exercise with my family where I said "deep snow and bitter cold will be coming. One day soon it will be here. Is there anything you wish you had when it arrives? Go get your boots and try them on. Find your mittens and hats and gloves. Do you have a winter coat that fits?" You see, I was able, from weeks ago in the past, to correctly predict that it would snow again in New England. This is apparently a supernatural power. For example, and this is what brought up this discussion to begin with, the day we got a foot of snow my husband realized that our snowblower needed maintenance and was non-functional. He was present for that conversation in November, he knew about this impending snowstorm for a week, he's known the snowblower was broken since last March. But at no point did it occur to him that he'd want to be able to use it again. It was one of those future-things that doesn't exist for him. How was HE to know that Future-Him would want the snowblower to work? His brain simply doesn't do that.
So in discussing his two parents with Small Boy we got to wondering if my brain-deadness around what needs to be done in the next few minutes and his brain-deadness about what needs to be done in the next few weeks are related issues. Is it part of the same continuum? People who are perpetually running late because of lack of ability to see the shape of their time budget in their heads are also the people who are heavily future-oriented? And vice versa; the people who totally grok that breakfast will take twenty minutes, who really UNDERSTAND the shape of present time, are the ones for whom the future is a huge unknowable mystery?
My husband is out of town this week. I've hired someone to plow both driveways this year, one of the tenants is going to shovel the sidewalk on Main Street, and Small Boy and I shoveled the amazing amount of acreage that we call sidewalks at our home. (We're in an oddly elongated corner lot with half an acre of yard. We have a LOT of sidewalk with two large street exposures, on a sidewalk that has heavy foot traffic.) At some level is was nice to shovel: the snow was light and fluffy, it was nice to do it silently in the dark, and I could use the exercise. But my back hurts and I'm tired and I'm supposed to be doing some higher-value projects in my "spare" time. All in all i wish I had a snowblower - or someone to shovel my sidewalks. Being me, I'll do what I can to help Future-Me. But maybe I'll just keep shoveling and save myself the cost of snowblower now that I have a guy to plow for me. Besides, shoveling won't take more than ten minutes, right?