Simply Simon

Time as Gift

It’s been a while. Life has been full. The beginning of the academic year is always demanding. This year has been no different.

During especially busy periods like these, I am prone to view the persistent movement of the clock as the enemy, or the calendar as an unforgiving master. Time is that sparse commodity rationed out in ever-smaller increments—time is tyranny.

Then, as I did on the weekend, I watch an elderly woman tending roses in her front garden, or a parent playing hide-and-seek with a giggling infant in the park, and I remember that, before it is anything else, time is gift. Every moment is grace.

In her delightful book, Pip, Pip: A Sideways Look at Time, Jay Griffiths tells the story of Albert Dürer (1471—1528) who made an engraving of the ‘Artist Drawing a Nude through a Gridded Screen’:

“The nude (an entirely sensual woman) reclines away from him, smiling a very knowing smile and—if he looked—he would see her left hand is teasingly, playfully, almost touching herself. What of the ‘Gridded Screen’? He has set it between himself and the nude, so he can accurately plot her measurements and proportions. So rigidly preoccupied is the artist with the grid, that on the paper before him is no woman at all, no knowing smile, no thigh and no moist finger, just the straight lines on the page, the frets of a grid. Looking at this once, it occurred to me that this is how modernity sees time; that we are so preoccupied with our gridded, subdivided constructions of numbered measurements we lose sight of the gorgeous, lifeful thing itself. Modernity knows the strut and the fret. But not the hour.”

Sleep: an act of trust

"At the very least, sleep is a good opportunity to entrust yourself, your entire self, to God’s care. You’re trusting something when you lay down your body and, with it, the control of your conscious mind. That moment when you consciously choose unconsciousness, and let yourself go, is a daily opportunity to relinquish control to a God who you have to trust."

Fred Sanders, A Theology of Sleep

Gazing at God's windows

A little friend of mine has a reputation for moving slowly, for ambling his way through tasks, for daydreaming. He is easily enticed down the laneways of his mind; they routinely take him off track and away from his original destination … and mine. He’s a meanderer.

Meandering is a lost art. It infers a slowness of pace judged harshly in our culture of speed and efficiency. Jay Griffiths, author of Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time, says that in English, slowness is often treated with pity ( a slow learner), derision (sluggish) or suspicion (loitering). To call someone ‘bovine’—slow as a cow—is to express contempt.

In contrast, “Latin yields the wisdom of slowness—festina lente (make haste slowly); Italian dignifies it with largo or offers the radiant serenity of dolce far niente (literally, sweet doing nothing); while French provides the flirtation of the flaneur, the dusky eyed pauser, stroller and observer.”

Milan Kundera’s novel Slowness describes the happy idleness of the “amblers of yesteryear … recalling the Czech proverb: ‘They are gazing at God’s windows.’” Perhaps my little friend is onto something.

Urban strides

There’s an interesting article in today’s Age. It's a report by John von Radowitz on the results of a major study measuring the pace at which people walk in large cities around the world.

In the early 90s, the American psychologist Robert Levine measured the average pace at which people walked in the major cities of 32 countries across the world. A decade later, the British psychologist Richard Wiseman undertook the same project, carefully replicating the conditions of the first study. Comparing the results, Wiseman concludes that there has been an average increase of 10% in walking speeds in the past decade. The greatest increase was found in Singapore with a rise of 30%.

According to Wiseman, "This simple measurement provides a significant insight into the physical and social health of a city. The pace of life in our major cities is now much quicker than before. This increase in speed will affect more people than ever, because for the first time in history the majority of the world's population are now living in urban centres."

Wiseman adds, "The psychology is basically that people's walking pace is determined by how much they think they're in a hurry, how quickly they think they should be doing things."

Wiseman's findings will appear in more detail in his forthcoming book, Quirkology. Hmm ... quirky!

Time & Commitment

I have been conscious these past few weeks that every commitment I make requires choice. On the larger scale, commitment to my spouse means choosing her over others; the commitment to follow Jesus requires the relinquishment of other allegiances. On the more immediate front, the commitment to use my afternoon for one purpose means letting other possiblities go.

This simple fact runs counter to an increasingly dominant cultural value: one that says, no need to choose ... you can have it all. Trouble is, you can't ... in theory or practice. Any commitment worth making requires "a certain singularity," a choice that precludes as much as it includes. Such a simple truth has implications for the big commitments in life, but equally so for all the little ones.

Quoting the Quaker Elton Trueblood:

"One of the areas of experience in which the acceptance of discipline is most important for modern man is that of the right use of time. Our relation to time is highly paradoxical in that, though we live in an age marked by time-saving devises, we seem to be ever more hectic in running from appointment to appointment. Because we do not have to use precious time, as all of our ancestors did, in carrying water, grinding flour, and weaving cloth, we should ... have more free time available, but we do not. The trouble seems to be that we presume on the advantage of our inventions by deliberately adding to the number of our engagements until our lives are fragmented. Too many commitments amount virtually to none. The only commitment which is significant is that which has about it a certain singularity or even priority."

________________________

Elton Trueblood, The Company of the Committed (New York: Harper & Row, 1961).

Yours sleepily

This past Sunday morning, I was invited to share with my own church community some thoughts about rest and sleep as acts of the Spirit. It might seem an odd choice as we gear up for the demands of a new and busy year. Then again, perhaps there’s no better time to remind ourselves of the God-given gifts of Sabbath.

I began with this piece taken from Michael Leunig’s delightful series of correspondence The Curly Pyjama Letters. Some had requested it, so here it is in full:

(From Mr. Curly to Vasco Pyjama)

Dear Vasco,

In response to your question, “What is worth doing and what is worth having?” I would like to say simply this. It is worth doing nothing and having a rest; in spite of all the difficulty it may cause, you must rest, Vasco — otherwise you will become RESTLESS! I believe the world is sick with exhaustion and dying of restlessness.

While it is true that periods of weariness help the spirit to grow, the prolonged, ongoing state of fatigue, to which our world seems to be rapidly adapting, is ultimately soul-destroying as well as earth-destroying. The ecology of evil flourishes and love cannot take root in this sad situation. Tiredness is one of our strongest, most noble and instructive feelings. It is an important aspect of our CONSCIENCE and must be heeded or else we will not survive.

When you are tired you must HAVE that feeling and you must act upon it sensibly — you MUST rest like the trees and animals do. Yet tiredness has become a matter of shame! This is a dangerous development. Tiredness has become the most suppressed feeling in the world. Everywhere we see people overcoming their exhaustion and pushing on with intensity — cultivating the great mass mania which all around is making life so hard and ugly — so cruel and meaningless — so utterly graceless — and being congratulated for overcoming it and pushing it deep down inside themselves as if it were a virtue to do this.

And of course, Vasco, you know what happens when such strong and natural feelings are denied — they turn into the most powerful and bitter poisons with dreadful consequences. We live in a world of these consequences and then wonder why we are so unhappy.

So I gently urge you, Vasco, do as we do in Curly Flat — learn to curl up and rest — feel your noble tiredness — learn about it and make a generous place for it in your life and enjoyment with surely follow.

I repeat: it’s worth doing nothing and having a rest.

Yours sleepily, Mr. Curly x x x
____________________
Michael Leunig, The Curly Pyjama Letters, Viking, 2001, 26-28.

Tyrannies and Addictions

My email in-box was overflowing again this morning. As I watched the counter tally up the grand total for the day, I slumped into my seat. It was all I could do to pull myself up and make another cup of tea.

Amidst the numerous offers of drugs to improve my sex life, there was the usual long list of requests, notices, forwards, greetings, demands, reminders—most flagged ‘urgent’. Then there were the agendas for meetings and their endless attachments, and the links to professional associations, journals and booklists begging to be read. It seems like a small mountain to scale each morning before I’m ever allowed to move on with my day.

When I first encountered email, it was captivating, fun, a liberating convenience. I was living overseas at the time; contact with home had never been easier. Today it feels more like a bind. As I stare at the in-box, I feel more imprisoned than liberated, more put upon than captivated.

Oddly, given the chance to do without it I’d probably say no. Of course I would. In a startlingly short period it’s become as necessary as the telephone. I like it. I loathe it. I need it.

Granted, I’m not a technophile. But I’ve never been more conscious of technology’s impact upon my daily life as I have these past few months. Call me a slow learner. Perhaps it’s the now eternal presence of my mobile phone. Or the 24-hour wireless internet connection at home. I’ve never been more in touch or accessible.

In an idiosyncratic but fascinating book The Tyranny of the Moment, Danish Anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen explores the impact of information technology on our lives. He’s no Luddite, no prophet of technological doom. But he does call us to think more about the consequences of our current dependencies and, subsequently, to make more proactive and informed choices about the place of these technologies in our daily routines.

Here’s a few of the impacts he addresses:

It fills the gaps:

According to Eriksen, the presence of mobile phones, lap tops and constant internet access has the capacity to fill every available gap in our time. Our every moment becomes saturated. We talk on the phone as we walk down the street, text friends and contacts while commuting on the train, surf the internet or review work documents while sitting in a café.

None of this is in itself negative, but as a consequence every spare moment is filled. Where is time for space and creativity? those times and places when imagination and reflection are allowed to roam free?

It pickles us in information:

We have never been more information-rich, with almost unfettered access to whatever it is that we want to know, and so much more. In many cases we no longer have to go looking for it. It comes to us. Through multiple forms of media and advertising, we are bombarded relentlessly with bits of information, each bit unrelated to the next, mounting in ever increasing stacks. We are progressively pickled in it.

According to Eriksen, no skill is more necessary than that of protecting yourself from the 99.99 per cent of information you’ll never need and, conversely, responding intelligently and sensitively to what’s really important.

It creates a new form of poverty:

While we may be information rich, Eriksen say, we face a new form of scarcity in the information age. Those elements of life most threatened include:

• Slow time
• Security
• Predictability
• Belonging and stability of identity
• Coherence and understanding
• Cumulative, linear, organic growth
• Real experiences (those that are neither ironic nor mediated by mass media)

It nurtures an addiction to speed:

According to Eriksen, acceleration is omnipresent and speed an addiction. He illustrates his point this way:

" ... it is as if one lives in an old, venerable but slightly dilapidated house and decides to refurbish the bathroom. Having finally done this, a poorer but hopefully happier person following a budget deficit worthy of the United Nations, one discovers for the first time that the kitchen is really quite run down. So one begins to tear out the old kitchen fittings, and soon enters a new frustrating round of phone calls to plumbers and masons. Then one is bound to discover, almost immediately, how old and warn the hall is, and really, wouldn't it be a terrific idea to give the living room a coat of paint and a new floor? Speed is contagious in an analogous way. If one gets used to speed in some areas, the desire for speed will tend to spread to new domains."

Speed is excellent where it belongs, but unless we understand how speed functions—its addictive force, what it adds and what it destroys—we are deprived of the opportunity to retain slowness where it’s most needed.

Eriksen's concludes his book with a list of recommendations. Here are some of them:

1. What can be done quickly, should be done quickly.
2. Dawdling is a virtue and should be honoured in its rightful place.
3. Slowness needs protection. If unprotected, it will be consumed.
4. Delays can be embraced as blessings in disguise.
5. The logic of the wood cabin (places that value slow time) deserves to be globalised.
6. All decisions exclude as much as they include.
7. Most things one will never need to know about. So relax!

A slow thought

A confession: when it comes to thinking, I dawdle. Steady, but slow, often meandering. I sometimes—no, often—wish I were built differently. In numerous meetings, I’ve sat in awe of those who think at great speed, who speak immediately on every issue and with such confidence. They simply assume authority for what they say. But me … well … by the time I actually think something coherent enough to say, the subject is most often changed. I slump back into my seat feeling pretty ordinary.

For the most part, I do not begrudge fast thinkers. God help us if we were all like me. But sometimes I do get a bit miffed by them. I have discovered over the years—slowly—that not every fast thinker is naturally wise. And not every fast thought, no matter how confidently offered, is necessarily inspired. To be honest, I’m a bit over fast thinkers who talk even faster than they think. And I’m a bit over just how much they get listened to.

In an essay I looked at recently, the French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu argues that our TV-enamored society increasingly favours fast-thinkers, those who “think faster than an accelerating bullet.” In contrast, he says, the more careful, deliberate thinker—the one who takes the time to reflect and therefore provide a more accurate or nuanced response to an issue—has become almost invisible and deprived of influence. “The result," says Danish anthropolgist Thomas Erkisen, "is people who speak like machine guns, in boldface and capital letters, who are given air time and influence--not the slow and systematic ones."

Now, I do not think for a minute that when Bourdieu wrote of the slow and systematic thinker who provides profound and nuanced insights, he had me in mind. Still, I am encouraged. And reminded that even though my thoughts come slowly, they are still worth having. And, if I am not talked over or can muscle in before the subject is changed, sometimes they’re worth sharing. Perhaps that’s why I blog.

Nap time!

Sleeping on the job has had a bad rap. It’s the epitome of laziness, they say. Indeed, desktop drool is a sure mark of the sloth.

It turns out we’ve got it all wrong. The latest research by the Sleep/Wake Research Centre at Massey University in Wellington has found that a workplace nap is one of the most effective strategies to greater productivity. Up to forty minutes of sleep, they say, can make a world of difference to the well-being of workers, to the health of workplace relationships and, ultimately, to the financial bottom line. Even a ten-minute doze sharpens the fatigued mind far more effectively that copious cups of coffee.

So, grab a pillow and clear the desk. It’ll impress the boss!

Further thoughts on 'slow'

In Death of the Weekend, a recent article in Sunday Life magazine, journalist Janet McCulloch explored the changes to the typical Australian weekend, from a period of genuine rest--an alternative rhythm--to one of ever more frantic activity. McCulloch quoted social commentator Bernard Salt:

"There used to be hard edges to time, distinctions between work and play. Now, thanks to the mobile phone and laptop, these once-separate sections of our days have fused together. The garden-variety weekend has gone and in its place there is a new weekend that almost has a sense of anxiety about it."

"We no longer quarantine separate actions but do everything at once. We've become so good at multi-tasking, we've forgotten how to do just one thing."

"Our pace is now: sprint, run, sprint, run. There's no 'stop' to life."

The question begs: if routine experiences of 'slow' are necessary to the sacredness of life, then how do we nurture them? ... without retiring to a commune, of course.

Any suggestions?