Fa's Blog about "A Geography of Time"

A few interpretations of this book by Robert Levine. A project made by Fabiola Ruiz-Ortega P. FYI, every square is a button.

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Jimmy Page & Robert Plant sing "Tea for One"  at Tokyo...

a blues about stretching time, not quite voluntarily.   Here are the lyrics:

How come twenty four hours, Baby sometimes seem to slip into days? Oh twenty-four hours, Baby sometimes seem to slip into days A minute seems like a lifetime, baby when I feel this way Sittin, lookin at the clock, time moves so slow I've been watchin for the hands to move Until I just can't look no more How come twenty four hours, Baby sometimes seems to slip into days? A minute seems like a lifetime, Baby when I feel this way. To sing a song for you, I recall you used to say "Oh baby this one's for we two", Which in the end is you anyway How come twenty four hours, Baby sometimes slip into days? A minute seems like a lifetime, baby when I feel this way. There was a time that I stood tall, In the eyes of other men But by my own choice I left you woman, And now I can't get back again How come twenty-four hours, sometimes slip into days? A minute seems like a lifetime, Baby when I feel this way A minute seems like a lifetime When I feel this way...I feel this way

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One of the best examples of how to explain the experience of psychological preception of time (duration) thorugh film. Robert Levine calls it "Stretching Time", they call it "Bullet Time".

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The duration of five minutes depends on which side of the restroom door you are.

Popular saying

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  Buddhists seek and mantain the control of their surroundings once they achieve a certain degree of concentration, and everything else appears to run in slow motion while their internal clock runs at normal speed.  Duration is the psychological perception of time and not only the buddhists can experience this specific state of mind. Tim Burton makes an outstanding metaphor of how this can happen to anyone under certain circumstances.

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When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes; when you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours. That’s relativity.

– Albert Einstein

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Perhaps one of the reason why places with a hot climate have slower tempos is because they don't have to work as hard to cover their bare necessities...

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READ THIS!

    What makes a country have a determined pace of life? Robert Levine puts it this way:

People are prone to move faster in places with vital economies, a high degree of industrialization, larger populations, cooler climates and cultural orientation towards individualism

ELEMENTS OF TEMPO

1. Economy:  The healthier a place’s economy, the faster it’s tempo.

As a city grows larger, the value of it’s inhabitants time increases with the city’s increasing wage rate and the cost of living, so that economizing on time becomes more urgent, and life becomes more hurried and harried. “- Irvin Hoch

  The tempo and economic variables reinforce each other.

2.  Degree of industrialization: the more developed a country, the less free time per day.

What kind of rule this is? The more time saving machinery there is, the more pressed a person is for time – Sebastián de Garza.

One reason for this is that almost every technical advance seems to be accompanied  by a rise in expectations.

FREE TIME = CONSUMPTION TIME.   For industrialized nations, it appears to be no such thing as "free time", due to the fact that the activities you perform in this time imply a certain kind of consumption: you are either smoking, eating, drinking, watching television, reading...and so on. In any of these activities you are playing the role of the consumer.

3.  Population size: Bigger cities have faster tempos.

4.  Climate: Hotter places are slower.

5.  Cultural Values: individualistic cultures move faster than those that emphasize collectivism.

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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

H.D.  Thoureau

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In a world where KFC and McDonald's have become necessary to put up with our pace of life, it is also fundamental that we take a look at other options...

Slow Food has a very interesting take on our modern-life tempo, a philosophy I personally believe is worth spreading

(Don't forget to click on the "click here button" above the logo to be redirected to their website)

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"SLOW" is spelled with four letters. So is "LIFE".

"SPEED" is spelled with five letters. So is "DEATH".

Writing found inside the Darjeeling Himalayan Express.

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We may play the same notes, in the same sequence... but TEMPO depends upon the person, task and setting.

Robert Levine

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Pace of life is determined by several elements, which have lots in common with music theory.

                               PACE OF LIFE

Rhythm:

Patterns of work-time to down-time

Is there a regularity to social activities?

Sequences:

Order of activities

Is it work before play, or the other way around?

Synchronies:

 Coincidences in time

To what extent are people and their activities attuned to one another?

Tempo:

Rate or speed at which activities are performed

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The reason why I chose to read this book...

a TED conference by Phillip Zimbardo.

rubeo:

RSA Animate - The Secret Powers of Time

interesting…

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Visit Original Link

Chopin is often related with tempo rubato, which translates from the italian "stolen time".

Tempo rubato is a musical term that refers to expressive and rhythmic freedom by a slight speeding up and then slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist or the conductor.

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VLADIMIR: That passed the time. ESTRAGON: It would have passed anyway. VLADIMIR: Yes, but not so rapidly.

Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

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Setting things straight...

 I'm not quite sure if it's a common misconception, but at least I wasn't able to tell sociology and social psychology apart before I read this book.

To feel a little less ignorant, I did some research:

Social psychology is the scientific study of how individuals think, feel, and behave in regard to other people and how individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are affected by other people.

Sociology and Social Psychology share interest in many issues, such as violence, prejudice, cultural differences, and marriage.

Sociology tends to focus on the group level while social psychology tends to focus on the individual level.

Sociologists most often study the relation between people ́s behaviors and societal variables, such as social class and social psychologists are more likely to study the relation between people's behaviors and more specific, immediate variables, such as manipulations of mood and exposure to particular models of behavior.

Social psychologists are more likely than sociologists to conduct experiments in which they manipulate some variable and determine the effects of this manipulation using precise, quantifiable measures