Wednesday, October 03, 2007

more time?


Its already the end of session A.

Only a few days ago we were defining upward mobility in terms of the notion of time. It seems that the higher one climbs the ladder the longer one can plan into the future. People who only had means to plan for one day were at the base, the people who had the means to plan a week, a month were a little higher. People who had the means to look years ahead were far far higher.

I chewed on this for some time.

In another conversation i concluded that music shrinks time. Movie without sound is longer than one with sound. Journeys are faster with music.

Dreams dislocate time. Dreams are oblivious to time.

Misery expands time. aways.

And 'Virtual life' subtracts time from 'real life'.

So, i suppose i can cure my fear of time flying by being miserable. Not being glued to headphones and and staying away from the internet!

6 comments:

Peggy Mohan said...

It's a joke thinking you can plan far into the future. Even if you are young. The most interesting turns of events have a way of taking us by surprise. And then the whole world changes.

We just struggle to catch up with it all, and tell ourselves we expected it all along!

Shivani said...

that is true...
but it meant only plan in terms of MEANS to plan. It was a financial observation, not one relating to foresight.
i was comparing people who earned enough money only to survive TODAY, and then bagan that cycle again the next.... as opposed to people who earned for a year ( farmers) so their lives were divivded into blocks of years... and then people who earned far far more, and thus had the MEANS to divide thier lives into much larger blocks. whether they actually chose to or not is about choice.
glad you're reading me!!

Peggy Mohan said...

But the people who earn far more are the ones who think in terms of five year cycles, discounting the fallout on time beyond that.

I read an article today that questioned whether we should continue to think obsessively about growth. Haven't we already arrived? Time to pitch our tents and give the Earth a chance to recover. And enjoy the late afternoon sun...

Glad to see you writing again!

silhouette said...

that was a BRILLIANT post.

time to me depends on how many things HAPPEN in it, I guess. For me, the past year and a half- seem to have FLOWN, since newer developments keep occurring. Getting out, school, getting into college, shows, practice, people going, people coming; the very transience of it all seems to have made time fly.
When I was at school, time stood still. Huh!I guess I'd rather it flew

with feathers said...

that was amazing.. got my grey cells ticking after a very long time..the tussle with time is probably symptomatic of this century but at a personal level, its debilitating..and i know very few others who like to talk about it even though they're in the same boat..

dqerwin said...

for me, time seems to shrink and grow depending on where I'm looking at it from. Before I sit down to do some work, I can plan for it in a number of hours - no feelings attached. When I'm not yet halfway done, it stretches out and weighs on me - it seems like it will take forever! When I'm working and not looking at the clock, not paying attention, it flies, I am flying, it feels like a dream that could be a hundred hours or just one second. When I am done and looking back, I forget all the details that went into it and I think to myself, "oh, that was quick; that was easy."
It's interesting to think about how notions of time have evolved during the last few millenia, since people were dimly aware of it and built Stonehenge as a calendar, to today when we use math and numbers to control the future to such a high degree that I am only a little afraid of mortgaging 10 years of my life for 3 years of learning.
I wonder how such considerations affect things like marriages and friendships?