Time

I'm helping beta-read a novel, and one aspect of it headed me down a rabbit hole about time, to a 31-year-old paper presented to the NCTE about "Indian time." "Indian time" is mythic, based on appropriateness of action ("I eat when I'm hungry, I drink when I'm dry, and if whiskey don't kill me I'll live til I die."), while "linear time" contributes to dislocation and illness. As is typical, the author cites special relativity without showing the remotest understanding of it.

The problems attributed to "linear time" and "technology" are curable with "mythic time" and simplicity, of course. Patton seems to be unacquainted with Christian traditions about materialism. And Mander's comparison tables, cited in the Appendix, are not just invidious but inaccurate. Some tribes did in fact work to produce surplus for trade, and trade networks could be extensive.

You can tell that the paper is old; it doesn't try to attribute wickedness to whites, just to "technology." It probably would run into a lot of flack today.

At any rate, I didn't find what I was hunting: anything like the (surprisingly late!) idea of returning to the past. Stories of one-way time travel to the future are very old.

Of course, after making a bit of fun of the paper, I need to give an example of what she means. When I lived in Liberia, people referred to Liberian Standard Time, which in practice meant "whenever:" Maybe half an hour after the hour specificed, maybe the next day. Things happened, and meetings ran long, and part of business was maintaining relationships. And land line telephones weren't that common. When I returned, cell phones were ubiquitous, and often interrupted things. It seemed that the rule that "a meeting lasts as long as it lasts" was now something of an exception. Was maintaining relations still such a large part of business? I wasn't there long enough to find out.

Spending time

Isaiah 55:1-2 says:

Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance.

It isn't quite "without cost." It costs us time and a choice.

I have 24 hours to spend today. What will I spend them on? There may come a day when I'd give the world for 2 more hours, but it turns out I can't bank them. And in between now and then, I will have spent them all. What will I have bought with them?

Each moment has choices. Most of the time I just keep doing what I started doing a few minutes ago, but sometimes I distract myself. While I wondered what to write next, I clicked over to read some news. I didn't really learn anything, so why did I bother?

I can't bank choices either. Some choices are big (who to marry, what career to work in) and require follow-through with the lifetime of implied little choices--in fact, if I don't follow through, did I ever make that big choice to begin with? Or was I fudging? This brings to mind the whole issue of New Years' resolutions.

Most of the people I work with understand choices and promises in their professional life. You make a promise, make a choice, and that binds you to a lot of subsequent choices. Nobody wants to work with you if you don't. You don't get anything done if you don't. They mostly understand the principle in personal life, but not always or all the time. I wonder what makes it easier in one case than the other.

And why it is always so easy to choose what isn't bread.