Slipping time
Today drove me slightly crazy. I took transit (as usual, as a good ecological citizen should) and neglected to remember that it is after all, construction season in my fair city, which meant I spent a great deal of time looking out the window of the bus onto the delightful sight of orange pylons and chewed up roads. I got off the bus rather than sit there breathing traffic fumes for longer than absolutely necessary, but really all that gave me was the opportunity to trip over the chewed up pavement in an up close and personal way instead of from the relative distance of the interior of the bus. Alas, a misjudgement, but moving felt better than sitting, in any case.
I did make it to my appointment on time, even early, which provided me the opportunity to pretend to be a homeless undergraduate student and sit on the floor with my trusty travel mug of coffee and pretend to be motivated. Of course, not anticipating I'd arrive twenty minutes early I hadn't brought a book or even the pile of marking that awaits me this weekend. Ah, the joys of self-employment. But really, in terms of time, is it actually valuable to fill every moment? Much of what I've been reading lately suggests (or out and out declares) that obsession with passing minutes unfilled with measurable activity is a peculiarly Western issue. From whence does our panic at the notion of a "wasted minute" come from? Why the idea (thank you Ben Franklin) that "time is money"? It isn't, of course, but for anyone who has calculated the worth of their paid time while deciding whether or not to hire out an unappealing task (for example, say I'm a well-paid lawyer who hates to do laundry, and I use the monetary worth of my time to justify paying someone else a pittance (relative to my salary) to do it for me) has bought right into the idea that time is measured primarily against currency.
I suppose that at some level it makes sense to measure two essentially made-up concepts against each other. After all, the only reason that the monetary system works is because we've all agreed to play along. I work, I get virtual money in my virtual bank which I then spend, virtually, for material goods or services. Bizarre, when you think about it. And so is time in the discrete, standardised unit sense. Time as the passage of seasons and events, and biological time all make sense at a bodily and experiential level, but this kind of time is not the kind of time that we've accepted when I can measure the minutes I'm "early" for an appointment by, and know that the person I'm meeting will agree. Really, it's just a convention, and one that creates a great deal of anguish for many. Including me, on occasion.
On that note, I'd best go and fill my 'productive' time with something useful... like marking.
I did make it to my appointment on time, even early, which provided me the opportunity to pretend to be a homeless undergraduate student and sit on the floor with my trusty travel mug of coffee and pretend to be motivated. Of course, not anticipating I'd arrive twenty minutes early I hadn't brought a book or even the pile of marking that awaits me this weekend. Ah, the joys of self-employment. But really, in terms of time, is it actually valuable to fill every moment? Much of what I've been reading lately suggests (or out and out declares) that obsession with passing minutes unfilled with measurable activity is a peculiarly Western issue. From whence does our panic at the notion of a "wasted minute" come from? Why the idea (thank you Ben Franklin) that "time is money"? It isn't, of course, but for anyone who has calculated the worth of their paid time while deciding whether or not to hire out an unappealing task (for example, say I'm a well-paid lawyer who hates to do laundry, and I use the monetary worth of my time to justify paying someone else a pittance (relative to my salary) to do it for me) has bought right into the idea that time is measured primarily against currency.
I suppose that at some level it makes sense to measure two essentially made-up concepts against each other. After all, the only reason that the monetary system works is because we've all agreed to play along. I work, I get virtual money in my virtual bank which I then spend, virtually, for material goods or services. Bizarre, when you think about it. And so is time in the discrete, standardised unit sense. Time as the passage of seasons and events, and biological time all make sense at a bodily and experiential level, but this kind of time is not the kind of time that we've accepted when I can measure the minutes I'm "early" for an appointment by, and know that the person I'm meeting will agree. Really, it's just a convention, and one that creates a great deal of anguish for many. Including me, on occasion.
On that note, I'd best go and fill my 'productive' time with something useful... like marking.
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