*a dramatization of an actual conversation*
"You may have noticed that you were speaking really fast. Try taking a deep breath."
"Oh. Alright"
"better?"
"Yeah"
"You seem more relaxed. Now, you were saying?"
I shifted my weight on the plush, olive green armchair. I drew a breath in, and began to talk again. This time, I kept attention to my speaking voice. Neither to fast or too slow; it was just perfect.
"I feel that I don't have enough time" I said, "It is as if I can't decide what to do". My counsellor's pencil moved across his small notebook. I kept going, "I worry that I can't do everything I want". My hands started moving around, "I have this fear of running out of time, yet, I am always paralyzed, unable to do anything". My counsellor's eyes shot upwards. "Could you elaborate on that?," he said. "Why are you paralyzed?".
"Well, in one hand, I am aware that I have limited time being alive".
My counsellor's hand was still.
"I could die at any moment, so it would make sense that I live each day as my last," I struggled to find the right words. "My dad once told me how samurai used to have this mentality; they would live each day as their last, and go to bed convinced that they would die that night". My head was running, trying to connect the dots of my words. It was as if they came out on their own, and it was my job to make sure that the next sentence was coherent.
"If one thinks about it then, it doesn't make sense to do anything but what I love".
I exhaled, and my arms returned to my side. "Because you know, I'm going to die tomorrow". I drew another breath in, now through my mouth.
"In the other hand, me dying tomorrow is incredibly improbable," my hands began to move again. "So then, the logical thing to do is to do my work, which would improve my quality of life over the long time".
My hands were now waving around in small circles, with the occasional slap on the arm rest. "This does not negate the fact that I am going to die; I need to make sure that I don't waste my time being unhappy, just to one day drop dead". As I said this words, a second line of thought began to creep into my head. What if this was my subconscious rationalizing my procrastination? Crap. The thought hit me like a bucket of cold water. The dots connected too perfectly.
I didn't share my disturbing epiphany with my counsellor. The fact remained, I had a bad time management problem. So, I might as well hear him out. I collected my thoughts in a split second, and continued my disquisition. "I am in a sort of stalemate; I can't decide what is the right action, and so, I end up doing nothing, and wasting time".
Finally, my counsellor spoke.
"I just want to make notice that you have repeated word time a lot since you sat down."
My legs crossed and my arms, once again, returned to the arm rests. "Oh," I said. "I didn't notice, sorry". My counsellor looked at me, "no need to apologize here". I shifted my weight again. "How about we take another breath?" he suggested. I inhaled through my nose, and my chest filled up with air. After a moment, I exhaled from my mouth, prolongating it as much as I could.
I met his gaze expectantly.
"How about we try something?" he began. "Sometimes, when people are dealing with a problem, it helps to personify it".
My thoughts cringed. Personify it? That sounded suspiciously pseudoscientific. No, no, no, no; I know that is my hubris speaking. My mind raced once more."I only know, that I know nothing". Something that I ought to remind myself. G'old Socrates.
Meanwhile, my counsellor continued. "How should we name this anxiety you have?". The question caught me by surprise. I am infamously bad at naming. Hesitantly, I began, "Well... Socrates used to say he heard a voice that woul-"
"I think we should keep it simple"
"Right...uh"
"How about, Time?"
Time is a funny concept. It is not the static, unchanging, immovable being that we believed it to be. After Einstein unraveled the theory of relativity, we began to understand time as merely a face of a larger coin. The coin of space-time. With the concept of space-time, came the understanding that time is relative. Studying phenomenon like time dilation, we can observe time shorten and expand (as well as space). However, in a more human level, we as a species have a complicated relationship with time.
Time itself is a restriction of sorts. We only have a limited amount of it as living, conscious creatures. Moreover, we have limitations inside that period of time. We only have so much time being a child; we have only so much time being a teenager; we have so much time being an adult. The scary aspect of time is that A) We only have so much of it. And B) we don't know how much time that is. Thus, one can see how a live today-die tonight mentality, such as the one followed by the samurai, can arise. However, a wager must be struck. By living each day as our last, we are sacrificing our long term quality of life (perhaps by spending our savings to lavishly, or by neglecting our planning for old age). Either way, If we choose to direct our energy towards securing a comfortable future, there is still a considerable time pressure to pursue said goal.
This reality of time was understood through trial and error. All throughout history, our ancestors have left cautionary tales about time. For example, the saying: Memento mori or remember death, was very popular among medieval christians. Centuries before, the roman emperor, and notable stoic, Marcus Aurelius wrote: "Think of your many years of procrastination; how the gods have repeatedly granted you further periods of grace, of which you have taken no advantage... advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again." (Meditations, 2.4). Perhaps a more contemporary example is the winged hourglass, usually accompanied by the epithet Tempus fugit or Time flies.
Perhaps the epitome of this drive through fear of time is Alexander Hamilton, or at least his portrayal in Hamilton: An American Musical, by Lin Manuel Miranda. The show is filled with themes of legacy and an achievement. The characters of the show react differently to the flying hourglass. Hamilton works as fast and hard as he can; he runs a perpetual sprint. His rival, Aaron Burr, moves cautiously; he plans his moves carefully. Hamilton was lucky to live to see his twentieth birthday, thus, he embodies the frantic and passionate live today-die tonight ideology. However, his political life crumbles on the latter part of his life. This is due to his harsh decisions. Burr in the other hand, has a slow start. Opposed to Hamilton, Burr enjoys a stable and successful political career well into his adulthood. This is misleading though; although Burr enjoys stability, Hamilton's legacy overshadows Burr's by miles. The show's portrayal of the characters is not as two dimensional as "Hamilton harsh, Burr careful". Both Hamilton and Burr are deeply layered and evolve thoroughly throughout the show. Yet, it is this wager that defines their fate, and that of ourselves.
Comentários