#timeintogo

[timeintogo]

If you take time not as a calendar product but as the parent, mother of presence, then you see that in the world of spirit, time behaves differently.

John O’Donohue, as heard on the On Being podcast “The Inner Landscape of Beauty”

[timeintogo]

When you slow it down, you can find your rhythm, and when you come into rhythm then you come into a different kind of time.

John O’Donohue, as heard on the On Being podcast The Inner Landscape of Beauty

[timeintogo]

Shifting Time

We live our lives by the calendar and the clock, but time is also an abstraction, even an illusion. In this hour, TED speakers explore how our sense of time changes depending on who and where we are.

On a favorite theme that has been central to this blog and my reflections in Togo...

Of particular relevance this week as two of my best friends in country close service and return to the U.S. Time flies!

[timeintogo]

The European and the African have an entirely different concept of time. In the European worldview, time exists outside man, exists objectively, and has measurable and linear characteristics. According to Newton, time is absolute: "Absolute, true, mathematical time of itself and from its own nature, it flows equably and without relation to anything external." The European feels himself to be time's slave, dependent on it, subject to it. To exist and function, he must observe its ironclad, inviolate laws, its inflexible principles and rules. He must heed deadlines, dates, days, and hours. He moves within the rigors of time and cannot exist outside them. They impose upon him their requirements and quotas. An unresolvable conflict exists between man and time, on that always ends with man's defeat - time annihilates him. Africans apprehend time differently. For them, it is a much looser concept, more open, elastic, subjective. It is a man who influences time, its shape, course, and rhythm (man acting, of course, with the consent of gods and ancestors). Time is even something that man can create outright, for time is made manifest through events, and whether an event takes place or not depends, after all, on man alone. If two armies do not engage in a battle, then that battle will not occur (in other words, time will not have revealed its presence, will not have come into being). Time appears as a result of our actions, and vanishes when we neglect or ignore it. It is something that springs to life under our influence, but falls into a state of hibernation, even nonexistence, if we do not direct our energy toward it. It is a subservient, passive essence, and, most importantly, one dependent on man. The absolute opposite of time as it is understood in the European worldview. In practice terms, this means that if you go to a village where a meeting is scheduled for the afternoon but find no one at the appointed spot, asking "When will the meeting take place?" makes no sense. You know the answer: "It will take place when people come."

I still find fault with the strict dichotomy that this "European" versus "African" typology sets up, but it offers an insight into two ways of looking at time. I notice the latter one much more frequently in Togo, however. One of the many reasons why I appreciated The Shadow of the Sun was how well he articulated some of cultural elements I've observed in Togo. Generalizations aside, I loved the way Kapuscinski's articulate different perceptions of time. Even as I try to allow myself flexibility from what Kapuscinski calls the "European worldview" of time - which I would argue Americans take to an even more serious degree - I find myself frustrated with the kind of time I find in Togo, the kind Kapuscinski describes as "African."

Is there a middle ground?

(Kapuscinsi, Ryszard. The Shadow of the Sun. New York: Vintage International, 2001. 16-17)