Time Well Spent I: Whose time is it anyway?

I've been on vacation for the last month or so. I've ostensibly been using the time for "rest" At term that is, admittedly, a member of that class of gratuitous English phrases, whose function is to deflect further inquiry without divulging any substantial information. They unanswer questions. The only appropriate response to these phrases, as dictated by the unofficial rules of Western decorum, is a slight nod and a knowing "ahhh!"

Because this is America, dammit!, there is a whole industry that focuses on the monetization of said phrases. It boasts master orators who string the phrases into unending presentations, aided solely by color-coded Power Point slides. They collect millions of dollars to remind you to "de-average" "brainstorm" and "solution the problem," blinding you in a cloud of buzzwords so you don't see us...I mean them, grab the money and run. I kid...somewhat, but thus far my vacation has been an attempt to rebel against my hard-wired reflexes of diversion and discern what exactly "rest" means.

This has turned into a pilgrimage of sorts, as I've rediscovered erstwhile dusty academic concepts on my journey to figure this out. I became convinced that time successfully spent on rest must offer reflection and rejuvenation. This conviction being borne out out of recognition that vacation is a liminal space. It is a time of respite between what was and what will be (thus giving me distance to both reflect on what's passed and re-energize in anticipation of what's to come. Reflection, however, is not discipline of high value in a society where we always need to be doing more, making the most of the next opportunity, going somewhere. It requires us to stop and look back, two activities that can only retard the efficiency with which you get to the "next place". Rejuvenation is an easier pill to swallow; the promise of greater efficacy in times to come grants it some appraisal in our forward orientated currency.

But this reflection-rejuvenation definition still felt amorphous, by what metrics would I actually determine whether my time over this vacation was well spent? Then again, were "metrics" even the best way to approach this? While the first question was difficult, the second one felt overwhelming. Figuring out how to meet our goals feels straight forward enough. The entire discipline of management science devotes itself to this, and if the academic route isn't your idea of a good time, there are a gazillion self-help books willing to serve the same purpose. Figuring out what those goals should be, on the other hand, always feels like sailing into uncharted territory. Understanding the best approach to using my time has not disappointed in this regard. There are multiple ways to look at not just rest, but time itself, and these perspectives have huge implications for how we live our lives. Implications I must admit I rarely consider.

I opened my last paragraph with the phrase "time successfully spent on rest must offer..." which probably didn't strike you as at all unusual if you are from North America or Europe. There are, however, multiple assumptions about time in that phrase alone that the majority of the world doesn't adhere to, viz., time as (1) a quantifiable entity that (2) is mine (3) to spend (4) whose value is determined by the value of what I do with it which is in turn ascertained by (5) the return on investment of that activity in the future.

Chronemics is the field of study devoted to the study of the use of time in nonverbal communication. It identifies at least four time orientations, the way time is conceptualized and used and the effects that has on everything from work and tardiness to relationships and satisfaction (if you are interested, check out this little piece by IndiaThink - a cross-cultural solutions company). Time orientation helps explain why I went from being perfectly content in a city where the public transport had neither schedules nor standardized price fares (you get to the bus stop every morning and merely hope something affordable shows up in time to get you to work) to getting infuriated when the free shuttle on my American college campus was ten minutes late. Hint: different cultures have different dominant time orientations. Fascinating stuff.

Never one to be outdone, philosophy has also done its fair share of heavy lifting in trying to figure out what time is - or at least, how we should conceptualize it. Together, the disciplines offer interesting counterweights to my previous premises, viz.

1. The claim that time is objective and quantifiable is based on the assumption that time can exist outside the events that happen in it. If you don't do anything then that time has been "wasted". Take the following thought experiment: if everything in the universe froze for a year, exactly as it was, would that year have passed? If your answer to that is "yes" then you agree with Plato, Newton and most of modern Western thought that sees time as independent of what we do with it. You could disagree, taking the position that time is merely a way of organizing events e.g. he ate lunch after he ate breakfast after his mom gave birth to him after dinosaurs roamed the planet. So if nothing changes, then no time has passed. You would find yourself in the good company of Aristotle and most of antiquity where terms like "three moons after the birth of King Uziel..." were common.
2. The best defense I can construct to legitimize use of "my time" goes something like this: To say time isn't really mine is to set up a straw man, no one in their right mind actually things of time as something they own like a house or car. I call my time mine because although it (obviously!) doesn't belong to anyone else, I will make decisions about what I do with it so calling it "my time" is merely short form. However, I think that the possessive determiner my functions as more than that, at least in the West. I mentioned my irritation when the shuttle comes late, this is true even when the shuttle is not so late as to inconvenience me. My schedule is something like: sit at the bus stop, sit on the bus, sit at the doctor's office until I get called in. A slightly late bus doesn't change me total time spent sitting, it doesn't change what I can do while I sit, it merely re-organizes how time is divided between these activities and I am learning to be outraged, much like one would be outraged to find that the neighbors have been using your backyard to sunbathe while you were out at work for years. It's the principle of the thing! The time is mine and you can't have it without permission. Of course, I didn't really think that way when I lived in Kenya which is why a late bus, was simply that, a late bus. Might we actually be irrationally possessive of our time?
3. This point is very linked to point 2. Not only do we think of time as we do the things possess, we think of it, for the most part, as a very particular type of thing we possess: currency. You might remember the evolution of contemporary currency from an introductory macroeconomics. If so, you've heard about how different societies with trial and a whole lot of error, came upon the use of fiat money: a medium of exchange that has value simply because the government says it does, meaning it has no intrinsic value of its own. This is absolutely necessary so that you never end up with a case where your money is worth more intrinsically than what it can purchase, destroying an economy (this happened during hyperinflation of the Weimar Republik, when the Deutsche Mark notes was more useful as fire fodder than money). But what happens when we view time as currency that we spend? Well, if we have our "currency lens" on, time becomes something on no intrinsic value, merely a means to an end à la assumption 4.
   
4. Any time I get a free moment, my mind begins to race with the ever growing items on my to-do list. If at the end of the day I cannot concretely list what I gained then my time was "wasted". Maybe there is nothing wrong with this. Perhaps it is an orientation that helps us make the most of our short time on this planet. I do know, however, that when people are most aware that they have very little time left, they often seem less concerned about future goals (understandably) but also about their bucket lists - despite what Hollywood may claim. It is almost as if they rediscover time's intrinsic value; that being here, now, irrespective of what you are doing, is precious and worth celebrating.
5. The insistence on a return on investment for our activities is explained by the American bias for a future time orientation. We love goals and schedules to achieve them. We show up on time, and expect things to end in a timely manner. We make the most of our time - unless, of course, you don't think that tomorrow is the only thing that matters.
   

In conclusion, so what? We see time radically differently. Big whoop. It is fascinating, even humbling, but if these ideas means nothing for how I actually live then do I run the risk of, dare I say it, wasting my time? At the very least, I will certainly betray my personal purpose for this blog. So, so what? I'm still figuring it all out - and probably always will be - but I do have a few idea. Nonetheless, let's leave those confessions for the next half of this post...