Time, Time, Time, is on my side, Yes it is! (Rolling Stones, late '60's)
Note 1:( I had just begun an email to Joe, when I suddenly became very inspired to write about time). So, here is my first post:
Note 2: I haven't put any timelines on the above for three reasons: First, they never hold true at all, and second, they are not really relevant, and third, time is not uniform or sequential in my universe. I feel the concepts of uniformity and sequence (as they apply to time) are an illusion that most people believe and conform with because it makes interactions with others go much more smoothly in today's society. Oh no, the need to write is sweeping over me! Please indulge! OK, we think of time as sequential and uniform: one second follows another, one minute follows another, and so on and so on. Each minute lasts 60 seconds, each hour 60 minutes, etc, etc. We learn such things as a small child, and it molds our way of thinking about time (and the world around us, for that matter). We accept it,there are bedtimes at certain clock positions, (O.F. Terminology - back when all clocks had hands instead of numerals. O.F. stands for Old Fart, btw). Anyway, there are school starting times and ending times, and tv show starting times, etc, etc. Our society has formulated, expects, and must have such uniformity and conformity for things to mesh well together.
Now, we all have a vague awareness that this is an illusion. For example, when we talk about someone being "mature" for his age, or acting like a child, or being ahead of his time, or growing old too quickly. Just expressions to help describe things. But think about it. How old are you, Joe? It could be measured in the usual way, years and months and days and such. But what if your organs are at different stages of a normal, sequential lifetime? Maybe you have the heart of a 15 year old, the eyes of a 40 year old, etc. And what about your mind? And your spirit? What about individual cells in your body? So, maybe your age cannot really be described, except as an average of many different things. And even then, it is relevent. You are 22 years old. In ancient times, you may have been considered middle-aged, if not old, based on the life expectancy at that time. Today, you may be in the lower quintile of your life, with 80% or more of your life still ahead of you. And what about your spirit? If spiritual growth is a real phenonemon, maybe you are very advanced in a spiritual sense of understanding life and our individual roles in life. You and I seem to be at about the same point, although in some respects you are more advanced, and possibly in some respects I am futher along. It doesn't really matter, we can almost always learn from others if we are open to other's ideas. And we always imprint others, even if it is only in the most miniscule and imperceptible fashion. (That is one of the most important lessons that I have learned over the past 20 years....how easily, sometimes imperceptibly, and sometimes in major ways (without realizing it, we influence others). But it is constant. So, if we influence everyone that we meet, talk with, smile at, write to, or just walk by on the street, doesn't that change the way we wish to interact with them, and the type of person we want to be? I know I am taking tangents to tangents to other tangents here. I think I was talking about time somewhere earlier in this note (*S*). One thing I have noticed, and this is an ugly overgeneralization, of course, but still a valid observation, I think......it seems to me that those people who are most attuned to time, driven by it, adhere to it, etc, etc, tend to be some of the more shallow and unhappy people I have met. On the other hand, does the Pope wear a watch? Did Ghandi, or Einstein, or some of the great philosophers, thinkers, world leaders? Maybe they did. But my guess is that some didn't own a watch. My goal is to distance myself from timekeeping as much as possible. It is hard to do that in the business world, but when I divorce myself from the more traditional "job", I intend to only carry with me a pocket watch, maybe with the initials of my children and other loved ones scratched inside the fob. I will consult the watch only when necessary to interact with those in the outside world. Otherwise, I will not let measurement of time control me the way it does so many others. I will eat when I am hungry, not at specfied times. I will feed the animals when they are hungry, I will sleep when I get sleepy, exercise when the desire arrives, sit down and enjoy the autumn sun and warm breeze and leaves falling from the trees when that is what my heart desires to do at that moment.
I remember something from my college days (I only remember a couple dozen things, but this is one of them): There was a sociologist studying a primitive tribe somewhere near the equator in South America (maybe Brazil? I don't know, my geography is horrible). Anyway, it was deep in the jungle near the equator, that is all I know. The tribe owned no watches, of course, and no calendars!!!! The concept of time, except for the passing of days, had no meaning to them. There were no seasons, of course, or even changes in weather patterns that deep in the jungle. Each day, from a weather perspective, was almost exactly like the previous one, except that some days it rained, and other days it didn't. Anyway, the tribe was very poor, and depended on hunting and gathering of wild fruits and berries to live on. Someone had the bright idea of teaching them to grow and harvest some crops to help their food supply. The experiment failed miserably. The tribesmen had absolutely no sense of urgency, of timing, or sequence. The idea of a "planting time" and a "harvesting time" made no sense, and they absolutely could not be convinced that on certain days or during certain weeks, they had to drop their customary daily activities and concentrate soley on planting or weeding or harvesting in order to successfully grow crops. The idea of planting or weeding or harvesting for an entire day was as unappealing to them as sitting in the corner of a classroom staring at the walls all day would be for a student. The plants just became overgrown with weeds and rotted in the fields, except for what little they chose to "harvest" on a day-to-day basis. At first, the sociologist thought the tribesmen were either unintelligent or just lazy. But eventually, he came to realize that the concept of planting, growing and harvesting had intense survival value in the northern climates, where the growing season was short, and survival depended on maximizing production by intensive planting, weeding and harvesting before the weather took over and starvation ensued. But in the jungle rainforest, each day, like the day before, was spent finding and preparing food; very little was preserved for the future, or needed to be, because when the food supply dwindled, they simply wandered to new areas. Damn, I am on even more tangents. I guess the point to all this, if there still is a point, is that my goal is to become free not only from the controlling aspects of working for someone else, but to be as free from the dictates of time measurement as possible. Some compromises may be required, but as always, we all have much more freedom of choice in almost every way conceivable than we realize. Most barriers exist more in our heads than in the real world. Well, I enjoyed rambling.
Oh, I never really touched on the beginning topic of sequence, I sort of got caught up in the uniformity aspect. Maybe a book could is in order. After re-reading the above, I realize I have many, many other things that I wanted to touch on but never got to. I think I could easily write a book on these topicss. Of course, to keep in line with the title/subject, I would probably write it in a random order of thoughts, much as I think. Chapter 5 might come before chapter 2, for example. And each chapter might go back and forth between earlier and later chapters. i know that makes it more difficult for the reader, but where in hell does it say the writer has to make the reader's job easier???? HEE HEE.
Later,
Dad
One last thing....Last night as I was driving home on the interstate, a very strange thing happened. For a distance of about 5 miles, all the vehicles on the road, in both lanes, were all driving the same speed. There wasn't much traffic at all, so people could easily have driven as fast or as slow as they wished, changing lanes anytime they wanted. But we were all driving 75 mph, so our relative positions didn't change. I felt like the movie was on pause or something, it was eerie. Anyway, the thought occurred to me, if we can move at different speeds in a physical sense, can we move at different speeds in a temporal sense. One last thought....(maybe), I will decide in a minute, hee hee. I loved the story "A Chrismas Carol", not just because of the main plot, but because of the way time is manipulated. Dickens deals with both the concepts of uniformity (all three ghosts visiting for what seemed liked days during the course of a couple hours), and sequence (the idea of the past, present and future and the interrelatedness of each). Yes, a book, I must do it. Too much low-lying fruit to just walk by this topic. (And no, I am not drinking or on drugs. It is 10:00 am on my day off, I am just enjoying the respite from going in to work, and enjoying the fall weather. And, this afternoon's trip to Louisville).
The Beginning.
Dad
Note 2: I haven't put any timelines on the above for three reasons: First, they never hold true at all, and second, they are not really relevant, and third, time is not uniform or sequential in my universe. I feel the concepts of uniformity and sequence (as they apply to time) are an illusion that most people believe and conform with because it makes interactions with others go much more smoothly in today's society. Oh no, the need to write is sweeping over me! Please indulge! OK, we think of time as sequential and uniform: one second follows another, one minute follows another, and so on and so on. Each minute lasts 60 seconds, each hour 60 minutes, etc, etc. We learn such things as a small child, and it molds our way of thinking about time (and the world around us, for that matter). We accept it,there are bedtimes at certain clock positions, (O.F. Terminology - back when all clocks had hands instead of numerals. O.F. stands for Old Fart, btw). Anyway, there are school starting times and ending times, and tv show starting times, etc, etc. Our society has formulated, expects, and must have such uniformity and conformity for things to mesh well together.
Now, we all have a vague awareness that this is an illusion. For example, when we talk about someone being "mature" for his age, or acting like a child, or being ahead of his time, or growing old too quickly. Just expressions to help describe things. But think about it. How old are you, Joe? It could be measured in the usual way, years and months and days and such. But what if your organs are at different stages of a normal, sequential lifetime? Maybe you have the heart of a 15 year old, the eyes of a 40 year old, etc. And what about your mind? And your spirit? What about individual cells in your body? So, maybe your age cannot really be described, except as an average of many different things. And even then, it is relevent. You are 22 years old. In ancient times, you may have been considered middle-aged, if not old, based on the life expectancy at that time. Today, you may be in the lower quintile of your life, with 80% or more of your life still ahead of you. And what about your spirit? If spiritual growth is a real phenonemon, maybe you are very advanced in a spiritual sense of understanding life and our individual roles in life. You and I seem to be at about the same point, although in some respects you are more advanced, and possibly in some respects I am futher along. It doesn't really matter, we can almost always learn from others if we are open to other's ideas. And we always imprint others, even if it is only in the most miniscule and imperceptible fashion. (That is one of the most important lessons that I have learned over the past 20 years....how easily, sometimes imperceptibly, and sometimes in major ways (without realizing it, we influence others). But it is constant. So, if we influence everyone that we meet, talk with, smile at, write to, or just walk by on the street, doesn't that change the way we wish to interact with them, and the type of person we want to be? I know I am taking tangents to tangents to other tangents here. I think I was talking about time somewhere earlier in this note (*S*). One thing I have noticed, and this is an ugly overgeneralization, of course, but still a valid observation, I think......it seems to me that those people who are most attuned to time, driven by it, adhere to it, etc, etc, tend to be some of the more shallow and unhappy people I have met. On the other hand, does the Pope wear a watch? Did Ghandi, or Einstein, or some of the great philosophers, thinkers, world leaders? Maybe they did. But my guess is that some didn't own a watch. My goal is to distance myself from timekeeping as much as possible. It is hard to do that in the business world, but when I divorce myself from the more traditional "job", I intend to only carry with me a pocket watch, maybe with the initials of my children and other loved ones scratched inside the fob. I will consult the watch only when necessary to interact with those in the outside world. Otherwise, I will not let measurement of time control me the way it does so many others. I will eat when I am hungry, not at specfied times. I will feed the animals when they are hungry, I will sleep when I get sleepy, exercise when the desire arrives, sit down and enjoy the autumn sun and warm breeze and leaves falling from the trees when that is what my heart desires to do at that moment.
I remember something from my college days (I only remember a couple dozen things, but this is one of them): There was a sociologist studying a primitive tribe somewhere near the equator in South America (maybe Brazil? I don't know, my geography is horrible). Anyway, it was deep in the jungle near the equator, that is all I know. The tribe owned no watches, of course, and no calendars!!!! The concept of time, except for the passing of days, had no meaning to them. There were no seasons, of course, or even changes in weather patterns that deep in the jungle. Each day, from a weather perspective, was almost exactly like the previous one, except that some days it rained, and other days it didn't. Anyway, the tribe was very poor, and depended on hunting and gathering of wild fruits and berries to live on. Someone had the bright idea of teaching them to grow and harvest some crops to help their food supply. The experiment failed miserably. The tribesmen had absolutely no sense of urgency, of timing, or sequence. The idea of a "planting time" and a "harvesting time" made no sense, and they absolutely could not be convinced that on certain days or during certain weeks, they had to drop their customary daily activities and concentrate soley on planting or weeding or harvesting in order to successfully grow crops. The idea of planting or weeding or harvesting for an entire day was as unappealing to them as sitting in the corner of a classroom staring at the walls all day would be for a student. The plants just became overgrown with weeds and rotted in the fields, except for what little they chose to "harvest" on a day-to-day basis. At first, the sociologist thought the tribesmen were either unintelligent or just lazy. But eventually, he came to realize that the concept of planting, growing and harvesting had intense survival value in the northern climates, where the growing season was short, and survival depended on maximizing production by intensive planting, weeding and harvesting before the weather took over and starvation ensued. But in the jungle rainforest, each day, like the day before, was spent finding and preparing food; very little was preserved for the future, or needed to be, because when the food supply dwindled, they simply wandered to new areas. Damn, I am on even more tangents. I guess the point to all this, if there still is a point, is that my goal is to become free not only from the controlling aspects of working for someone else, but to be as free from the dictates of time measurement as possible. Some compromises may be required, but as always, we all have much more freedom of choice in almost every way conceivable than we realize. Most barriers exist more in our heads than in the real world. Well, I enjoyed rambling.
Oh, I never really touched on the beginning topic of sequence, I sort of got caught up in the uniformity aspect. Maybe a book could is in order. After re-reading the above, I realize I have many, many other things that I wanted to touch on but never got to. I think I could easily write a book on these topicss. Of course, to keep in line with the title/subject, I would probably write it in a random order of thoughts, much as I think. Chapter 5 might come before chapter 2, for example. And each chapter might go back and forth between earlier and later chapters. i know that makes it more difficult for the reader, but where in hell does it say the writer has to make the reader's job easier???? HEE HEE.
Later,
Dad
One last thing....Last night as I was driving home on the interstate, a very strange thing happened. For a distance of about 5 miles, all the vehicles on the road, in both lanes, were all driving the same speed. There wasn't much traffic at all, so people could easily have driven as fast or as slow as they wished, changing lanes anytime they wanted. But we were all driving 75 mph, so our relative positions didn't change. I felt like the movie was on pause or something, it was eerie. Anyway, the thought occurred to me, if we can move at different speeds in a physical sense, can we move at different speeds in a temporal sense. One last thought....(maybe), I will decide in a minute, hee hee. I loved the story "A Chrismas Carol", not just because of the main plot, but because of the way time is manipulated. Dickens deals with both the concepts of uniformity (all three ghosts visiting for what seemed liked days during the course of a couple hours), and sequence (the idea of the past, present and future and the interrelatedness of each). Yes, a book, I must do it. Too much low-lying fruit to just walk by this topic. (And no, I am not drinking or on drugs. It is 10:00 am on my day off, I am just enjoying the respite from going in to work, and enjoying the fall weather. And, this afternoon's trip to Louisville).
The Beginning.
Dad