Time: The great task master

"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life."
William Faulkner

The ancient Greeks had two goods of time; Chronos being the god of the linear march of time, as marked out by a ticking clock and Kairos, the god of the right moment in time. Which commands the majority of your attention?

Whilst I’m sure scientists would disagree with me, I see time as purely a human construct and as such entirely relative. We may have devised a unit of time based on the time taken for a physical phenomenon to occur, as with the atomic clock but what dictates whether a period of time is considered long or short? Observing the world of modern man, so much of what we do is focussed around being time efficient and this it seems creates both unnecessary degrees of stress and consumption. Perhaps the only truly time critical event is finding sufficient food, water and shelter before its absence becomes uncomfortable. I find it ironic that although we have more and more time and work saving technologies, we seem to have less free time available than ever before.

If one looks at the work that goes on in business, before the advent of all the so called Information Technology work was done relatively efficiently. With the advent of IT one might have expected a significant increase in productivity but it seems that little has actually changed, yes more information is produced and analysed but because of the increase in speed of transaction afforded by IT, this information usually passes it sell by date before any conclusions can be drawn from it. It also appears that we have an innate tendency to mistake quantity, rhetoric and appearance for quality, substance and insight; "death by Powerpoint" and "vapourware" are all too prevalent in today’s business arena. Perhaps it is time for us to slow things down and be a little more considered before we act. In so doing we might actually begin to notice the opportunities to improve our lives that already surrounded us rather than rushing to develop or invent something else.

I believe we pay far too much attention to the passing of time and the need to do things quickly than in deciding how best to spend the present moment in time. This fixation has led us to be overly concerned about the length of our lives at the expense of the quality of our experience. In turn this I suggest has resulted in a reduction in concern for the nature of our relationships with each other and the things around us. I am left wondering if an objective assessment of our medical practices would question the resources and priority we give to life extension compared to the minimal attention given to social enrichment.

Before industrialisation our sensitivity towards time was linked to the natural cycle of the sun, moon, tides and seasons which reminded us all of our dependency on the natural order of things. Nowadays our perception of time is increasingly driven by the apparent urgencies of the commercial world. Whilst we cannot and should not attempt to control the natural world we can and should moderate the commercial one. The principal theme in this blog calls us to recognise the consequences of our fixation on economics and consumption, these are delivered by commerce which is a model we designed and can therefore redesign. There is no reason why a better system could not be developed which not only improved the qualitative experience of our lives but also increase the amount of non-work related time we can then choose how best to enjoy.

Returning to Chronos and Kairos, I believe that Chronos is telling us that our time is running out and that Kairos is calling us to action now, in this moment. The change can be instantaneous, as an individual all one needs to do is commit to a reprioritisation of what one values. Yes, it will take time, probably a number of generations to undo the damage we have done but the joy is in the journey, attending to what is truly valuable about life will continually yield rewards.

I am left wondering how different cultures and philosophies approached time and also have a desire to better understand the history of man in the wider ecological timeline.