How often this week have we looked at clocks ? How many times have we glanced at calendars ? How many times have we hurried about to get somewhere or do something or eagerly anticipated stopping doing something according to what number is indicated on a clock or calendar ? How many times have we said something as ridiculous as : “I just don’t have the time ?”
Why not ?
What is this stuff that we never have enough of, for all the hurrying and scurrying about we do in order to save some of it ? How much ‘now’ do we not notice, not enjoy or not experience in some conscious way because we’ve got our attention focused on some measure of ‘time’ that is not now ?
There are many layers of ‘not having time’ … Barrelling out the door to run to a bus so that one may arrive at a job by a given hour so that one may pay next week’s rent and try to put some aside for a “rainy” day (hell, it’s always raining – just spend it …). How many times have we put our happiness off until the day when we (may) have this or that, (may) have done this or that, (maybe) are this or that … ?
Even more untimely, how many times have we told someone : “I’m sorry, I don’t have the time”, when really we did ? How many times have we ‘not had time’ to listen, to help, to make the slightest gesture of kindness because we are serving the imagined needs of an uncertain future ?
How often do we swallow something on the run just to fill ourselves, nourishment notwithstanding, in order to save time ? Or do we skip meals altogether ? Is it frustrating when buses and trains are late, lifts are slow or people on the pavement are getting in our way ? What other daily inconveniences do we perhaps feel ‘waste our time’ ?
Do we really have so little time ? For all we do to ‘save’ it, do we have more ? Do we really have any less ? Perhaps the world is just going faster ? Or are we going slower ? Why do we need to save it, press for it, take it or kill it ?
What is this thing that we have too much or too little of ? What is this magick invisible stuff that once it has gone by it makes us late, or mature, or old … And all of it that is coming promises trouble, or success, or all the things we would or wouldn’t want ? What power is in this flighty, fragile film that contains all our lives and everything we hope and dread yet is a commodity so scarce that we never seem to have enough of it ?
It sounds rather absurd, put like that, doesn’t it ?
The hours, minutes, days and years we busy ourselves in and about are not anything other than the measure of the rhythms in the Force. Just as we could not ‘run’ out of inches, or litres or degrees. There is no clock or calendar time anywhere but in our constructs. So, it is true that we do not have any ; we can’t save it or waste it or be on it. Not really …
But we can adjust our rhythms to be more in tune with that of the Force, with the rhythms of the world that brought us forth. We can stop hurrying, stop stalling … We can do what we have to do in such a way as to work with the way we measure these rhythms – we call it time – but it is simply the social convention by which we can sometimes coordinate our rhythms.
We could, for instance, not begin watching a film at 11,30 p.m., that would make getting out of bed a little easier. We could not play that next level of ‘whatever’ before running out to catch the bus. We could answer that letter right away instead of leaving it on the desk until the day before a response is due. We could do other things in ‘timeframes’ which work with the ‘timeframes’ of what we are obligated by other social constructs to do according to the social construct of ‘time’. ‘Obligation’ even is a social construct. So, be they illusory or not, we do have some leverage over the way these social conventions become experiences.
Basically, we do not have to do less in order to have more time. It is really as easy as just doing things in a way as to not have to hurry. We have this social construct of ‘time’, but as with all other things in Life, we have an easier time managing it if we don’t try to. We need neither kill it nor save it. We need simply go with it … and then we need not looks so frequently at clocks and calendars.
So, why not repeat the exercise proposed to us by Grandmaster Neaj Pa Bol previously. When we receive, the emitter that is our mind quiets down. In this way, the rhythms to which we need attune become clearer.
May the Force be with us all ….
Respectfully submitted,
Alexandre Orion
