It's about time

I often feel I don't have enough time. But what does it really mean, to have time? In Einstein's world time is relative. It's the fourth dimension, intricately linked to space itself—spacetime. In the non-relativistic world, our world, time is treated as a constant, but it never feels constant to me. In my world the clock ticks ever so slowly or far too fast.

We learn early to succumb to the demands of the clock; we unquestioningly accept its rule. But our willingness to live by its precepts feels oddly mistaken. Have we trapped ourselves by our devotion to time and clocks and timeclocks and efficiency and productivity?

Whenever I could I turned my back on those demands. I've loved many jobs while regretting the time I needed to give them. I never wanted my precious hours to go to a career, a company, or a boss. Which probably explains why my retirement is so meager! But it seemed to me—and still does—that this life, every life, deserves to be honored by filling its allotted days with what one values; not by exercising the skills that others value—even when well paid for them. Sometimes those values overlap, of course, but that is a rare and wonderful thing.

Henry David Thoreau said, "You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment." I'm with Henry. We need and deserve time to sit, watch, listen, learn, love, and enjoy. 

In America finding such time is difficult. Unlike most countries in the world the U.S. has zero national requirements for vacations or holidays. Most European countries have 30 days of paid vacation, and employees are required to take it. With holidays, Austrians got 38 and Brazilians 41 paid days off in 2014.* Yet many Americans work multiple jobs and get no days off, while being called lazy by vacation-loving politicians.

This is not a healthy way to live, and the discord, anger, and division we see around us are, I think, a direct consequence of valuing productivity—and capitalism—over life itself.

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Whether we measure time in days, seasons, or decades, we are always paying homage to it. We do things from time to time, are present for the time being, will be there in no time, arrive in good time, and are frequently behind the times.

I expect we've all had the experience of time stretching as we travel. The strangeness of everything we see makes each moment unique, and the moment that followed behind it will contain some other uniqueness, some sight never seen, aroma never breathed, words never heard. Three weeks can feel like three months when everything is new. And then we return home to friends, excited about the stories we have to tell, and they say, "What, back already? Didn't you just leave?" Nothing deflates the eager story teller so quickly—which may be a good thing.

What contracts time, it seems to me, is habit, routine, or activities done mindlessly. Driving a well known route, you blink and realize you're at your destination and wonder how you got there. Your travel and time are lost in the fog of automaticity, the antithesis of mindfulness. 

But no matter how we shape it or cut it or use it or ignore it, time will never retreat. It may stretch or bend itself beyond understanding, but as long as we're on earth, time will be with us. We are nothing without it. For what is life but time?

* from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.