Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Unwinding the Clock: Ten Thoughts on Our Relationship to Time
Unwinding the Clock: Ten Thoughts on Our Relationship to Time
© 1999 by Bodil Jonsson
To take the first step you have to start getting used to thoughts about time other than such depressing statements as I just don’t have enough time, there is no time or I don’t know how I am going to find the time.
Consider the familiar all kind of wallets for holding money with the slot for your dollar bills. Then imagine there is another slot for the people around you, for the closest to you and for the other people in your life. The third slot is for the rest of your surroundings made up of the environment, nature and work. Finally there is a slot for what exists inside you, your thoughts and feelings. You will then see that an astonishingly large share of both individual and communal efforts is placed in the money slots.
The panic about what am I supposed to be doing, what am I forgetting and the anxiously murmured but, but, but, empty, empty, empty, what now faded away little by little. A preliminary stage to this collapse is that the more balls I add the longer it takes me to think and act. Maybe what we need sometime is to be a little bored. We need to let our thought age a bit before it can be processed in those parts of ourselves deep inside where we have no possibility of exercising control. I think we better stick to two types of time and distinguish between them - personal or experienced time and clock actually atomic time.
Some things can be done much better not only without interruptions but also after a certain set-up time. We should make use of the set-up time invested in focusing your thoughts. I divide tasks into the following categories. Easy and fun, easy and boring, difficult and fun, difficult and boring. It’s tempting to start with some of the easy ones. Everything would be fine if we had unlimited time but the result of the process described above is that we usually don’t even get to the difficult tasks. Only the nice and easy things get done is because we can’t make it through the unproductive set-up time preceding them. It’s more like set-up time anxiety. It takes a strong sense of awareness to prioritize and then make it through the set-up time required for a difficult task. I think the biggest responsibility of the younger generation should be to develop new ways of thinking and to show what happens when you start off with the completely new premise. You have to decide either that you have plenty of time or that you don’t have enough time. There is no middle ground.
The fact is that when I started telling myself that I had plenty of time and even started out loud I actually began to have more time. The first will have to do with safeguarding my set-up time and by taking it into consideration and advancing by planning for it. The second will have to do with not dividing my life into too many small pieces. Explain to yourself that there really is a difference between divided and undivided time. All trend breakers have at least one thing in common; they arouse strong feeling.
What makes me prefer both snail mail and e-mail over phone conversations is that I get to have my own time now relatively undisturbed. We count hours rather than kilometers now.
In his memoirs Bertrand Russell described what made life worth living for him - the search for knowledge a longing for love and empathy with those who are suffering. This outward attitude has to come when the child is ready and able to embrace it. The inner-dream life may be helpful and necessary for a while. It’s conducive to learning and tends to do good things as conducive to friendships.
It’s more common for us to be struck by the feeling that time is running way from us than by the feeling that the year has become longer. Human beings are on their ways to describing, reshaping and creating life. Human beings are on the way to making the boundary between life and death less distinct. Human beings are on their way to uncovering some of the mysteries of learning. Over the course of only a few years fundamental human ideas may be changed in a way that will affect everyone’s daily life.
It’s fascinating to meet people whose rhythms agree with your own. If the rhythms match your generosity in terms of putting up with each other can be almost unlimited. If the rhythms don’t match even the most trivial things can irritate you, because it’s so much fun when you find someone with the same thought rhythm.
One day I suddenly had a flash inside. Nobody could know what I am thinking, nobody could know what I am thinking, and nobody could know what I am thinking. It’s so individually individual. It helps me to understand how two people who have been in the exact same situation can still perceive it completely different. When each of them later recalls the situation in question the individual quality of the recollection process itself has turned the remaining abilities is the characteristics of the original impression. Once a suspicion has taken root it’s extremely difficult to get rid of.
There may be a way to get around this by turning back time to backcasting. Here it goes. Imagine all things to be in five years and position yourself there and then look back. Now try to figure out how you arrived there. Make a timetable, note down intermediate goals, deadlines before and after relationships and so on.
Many people have a remarkably difficult time making their visions concrete if they have to look ahead. I like to stand there in the future and look back in the rearview mirror, it works much better. You just have to start by pretending that we’re already there. Problems seen in the rearview mirror have merely the overwhelming significance that might have when we look back forward. Backcasting may become smaller, we see things in the rearview mirror the way we usually do when remembering. On the contrary, many of us have recollections that diminish the problems, which in spite of everything must have existed.
What if we already had taken the city, and then what will we use it for? The choice of an assault strategy seems to preoccupy all the thoughts of the attackers until someone steps forward and says what if we already had taken the city then what would we use it for? To achieve a specific goal, it pays to make an attempt to see with the eyes you imagine you might have after you have reached that goal. It is the time you spend on your rose that makes your rose so important.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0156007606
© 1999 by Bodil Jonsson
To take the first step you have to start getting used to thoughts about time other than such depressing statements as I just don’t have enough time, there is no time or I don’t know how I am going to find the time.
Consider the familiar all kind of wallets for holding money with the slot for your dollar bills. Then imagine there is another slot for the people around you, for the closest to you and for the other people in your life. The third slot is for the rest of your surroundings made up of the environment, nature and work. Finally there is a slot for what exists inside you, your thoughts and feelings. You will then see that an astonishingly large share of both individual and communal efforts is placed in the money slots.
The panic about what am I supposed to be doing, what am I forgetting and the anxiously murmured but, but, but, empty, empty, empty, what now faded away little by little. A preliminary stage to this collapse is that the more balls I add the longer it takes me to think and act. Maybe what we need sometime is to be a little bored. We need to let our thought age a bit before it can be processed in those parts of ourselves deep inside where we have no possibility of exercising control. I think we better stick to two types of time and distinguish between them - personal or experienced time and clock actually atomic time.
Some things can be done much better not only without interruptions but also after a certain set-up time. We should make use of the set-up time invested in focusing your thoughts. I divide tasks into the following categories. Easy and fun, easy and boring, difficult and fun, difficult and boring. It’s tempting to start with some of the easy ones. Everything would be fine if we had unlimited time but the result of the process described above is that we usually don’t even get to the difficult tasks. Only the nice and easy things get done is because we can’t make it through the unproductive set-up time preceding them. It’s more like set-up time anxiety. It takes a strong sense of awareness to prioritize and then make it through the set-up time required for a difficult task. I think the biggest responsibility of the younger generation should be to develop new ways of thinking and to show what happens when you start off with the completely new premise. You have to decide either that you have plenty of time or that you don’t have enough time. There is no middle ground.
The fact is that when I started telling myself that I had plenty of time and even started out loud I actually began to have more time. The first will have to do with safeguarding my set-up time and by taking it into consideration and advancing by planning for it. The second will have to do with not dividing my life into too many small pieces. Explain to yourself that there really is a difference between divided and undivided time. All trend breakers have at least one thing in common; they arouse strong feeling.
What makes me prefer both snail mail and e-mail over phone conversations is that I get to have my own time now relatively undisturbed. We count hours rather than kilometers now.
In his memoirs Bertrand Russell described what made life worth living for him - the search for knowledge a longing for love and empathy with those who are suffering. This outward attitude has to come when the child is ready and able to embrace it. The inner-dream life may be helpful and necessary for a while. It’s conducive to learning and tends to do good things as conducive to friendships.
It’s more common for us to be struck by the feeling that time is running way from us than by the feeling that the year has become longer. Human beings are on their ways to describing, reshaping and creating life. Human beings are on the way to making the boundary between life and death less distinct. Human beings are on their way to uncovering some of the mysteries of learning. Over the course of only a few years fundamental human ideas may be changed in a way that will affect everyone’s daily life.
It’s fascinating to meet people whose rhythms agree with your own. If the rhythms match your generosity in terms of putting up with each other can be almost unlimited. If the rhythms don’t match even the most trivial things can irritate you, because it’s so much fun when you find someone with the same thought rhythm.
One day I suddenly had a flash inside. Nobody could know what I am thinking, nobody could know what I am thinking, and nobody could know what I am thinking. It’s so individually individual. It helps me to understand how two people who have been in the exact same situation can still perceive it completely different. When each of them later recalls the situation in question the individual quality of the recollection process itself has turned the remaining abilities is the characteristics of the original impression. Once a suspicion has taken root it’s extremely difficult to get rid of.
There may be a way to get around this by turning back time to backcasting. Here it goes. Imagine all things to be in five years and position yourself there and then look back. Now try to figure out how you arrived there. Make a timetable, note down intermediate goals, deadlines before and after relationships and so on.
Many people have a remarkably difficult time making their visions concrete if they have to look ahead. I like to stand there in the future and look back in the rearview mirror, it works much better. You just have to start by pretending that we’re already there. Problems seen in the rearview mirror have merely the overwhelming significance that might have when we look back forward. Backcasting may become smaller, we see things in the rearview mirror the way we usually do when remembering. On the contrary, many of us have recollections that diminish the problems, which in spite of everything must have existed.
What if we already had taken the city, and then what will we use it for? The choice of an assault strategy seems to preoccupy all the thoughts of the attackers until someone steps forward and says what if we already had taken the city then what would we use it for? To achieve a specific goal, it pays to make an attempt to see with the eyes you imagine you might have after you have reached that goal. It is the time you spend on your rose that makes your rose so important.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0156007606
