week 1.

November 5

Time is my prison.

As soon as I awake, I feel the steel gate swing shut on me. I feel its rattle in my bones. I rush about my day, accomplishing the tasks that I’ve set out for myself within the time that is allotted to me. In between, I take short breaks while never losing awareness of the ticking clock. I am a man on a mission. A man at work.

There is a legend about the Jews in the desert. They had just escaped slavery and were unsure whether to accept obedience to a new god. So god lifted up a mountain over their heads and simplified their choice: obey me or this will be your grave.

Time is a mountain suspended above my head, each day threatening to crush me.

And yet, I ask myself, does time even exist?

I’ve been carefully reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entries on time. Trying to think through what the word even means. What do I refer to when I refer to time?

Here is an interesting excerpt that caught my eye:Think of a film strip depicting you as you walk across a room. It is made up of many frames, and each frame shows you at a moment of time. Now picture cutting the frames, and stacking them, one on top of another. Finally, imagine turning the stack sideways, so that the two-dimensional images of you are all right-side-up. Each image of you in one of these frames represents a temporal part of you, in a specific position, at a particular location in space, at a single moment of time. And what you are, on this way of thinking, is the fusion of all these temporal parts. You are a “spacetime worm” that curves through the four-dimensional manifold known as spacetime.

The doctrine of temporal parts can be stated like this:

Four-Dimensionalism: Any physical object that is located at different times has a different temporal part for each moment at which it is located.

On this view you have a temporal part right now, which is a three-dimensional “time slice” of you. And you have a different temporal part at noon yesterday, but no temporal parts in the year 1900 (since you are not located at any time in 1900). Also on this view, the physical object that is you is a fusion of all of your many temporal parts.

The opposing view is three-dimensionalism, which is just the denial of the claim that temporally extended physical objects must have temporal parts. Here is a formulation of the view:

Three-Dimensionalism: Any physical object that is located at different times is wholly present at each moment at which it is located.

According to three-dimensionalism, the thing that was doing whatever you were doing at noon yesterday was you. It was you who was doing that, and now you are doing something different (namely, reading this sentence). So the relation between “you then” and “you now” is identity. According to four-dimensionalism, on the other hand, the thing that was doing whatever you were doing at noon yesterday was an earlier temporal part of the thing that is you, and the thing that is doing what you are doing now is the present temporal part of you. The relation between “you then” and “you now” is the temporal counterpart relation. (This is similar to the relation between your left hand and your right hand, which is the spatial counterpart relation. Your two hands are distinct parts of a bigger thing that contains them both.)

———

Time doesn’t come easy. As soon as you scrape the surface, you’re plunged into a fog of complex thought experiments and counter-intuitive formulas. Almost as if Time is shy; it prefers to hide itself behind Space, it shrinks back from our prying hands.

Believe it or not, many thinkers do not believe in time at all. In fact, for a claim that is so bizarre, it’s quite a popular position. From mystics like Augustine and the Zen master Dogen, to physicists like Godel and Einstein, and philosophers like Parmenides and Spinoza — history is replete with time deniers (like an atheist for time? Tatheist?).

Actually, I myself became a time denier after my second acid trip. Time is just our way of organizing things. And, at some point, things just stop being organized. How come? That’s a good question.

Here is an interesting passage from Spinoza:

“Eternity cannot be explained by duration or time, even if the duration be conceived without beginning or end.”

— Ethics, Part I, Def. VIII

That is, eternity does not exist in time, in duration. It exists, rather, in simultaneity. As Spinoza is often paraphrased to say: “From the standpoint of eternity all things are simultaneous.”

Or as the Roman senator Boethius puts it in his Consolation of Philosophy (which he scribbling on his way to be executed):

Aeternitas igitur est interminabilis vitae tota, simul et perfecta possessio. (Eternity is the whole, perfect, and simultaneous possession of limitless life.)

———

As usual I’m using philosophy to distract myself from reality. The reality right here in front of me. The reality that is entangling me and won’t let me go. (Go where?) 

I spoke of time as a prison. But a prison implies a sentence, or a punishment. What is my punishment? And why am I being punished?

I’ve been dating K for about 8 months now. It’s by far the deepest and most committed relationship I’ve ever had. K has helped me grow — as a man, as a friend, as a lover — more than I could have imagined. And yet..

I see the road she is leading me down. I see where it takes it me. Or at least I imagine that I do. And my chest tightens.

But this is not about commitment. This is about time. The road, once noticed, seems to roll itself up until it’s neatly bundled at my feet. Here, today, now, this is what you’re doing. You’re nearly 33. You want to be a dad. K is 34. Make you decision NOW. The clock is ticking. No one is getting younger.

Don’t waste time.

DECIDE.

I haven’t felt this confused in a long time. A very long time.

I remember those months in yeshiva. Holding on to something I loved dearly. Never wanting to let it go. 

What am I doing? How am I to decide? How I am? How?

I don’t want to hurt anyone. But there isn’t enough time.

Do I let things continue as they are? Or do I seize the moment?

If only we had more time.

Do I let go or pull close? I’m paralyzed by indecision. I’m stunned. Frozen in time.

But time is relentless. It flows on. And I along with it.

——

Shōbōgenzō: On ‘Just for the Time Being, Just for a While…’ 

A poem by Great Master Yakusan Igen, the Ninth Chinese Ancestor in the Sōtō Zen lineage:

Standing atop a soaring mountain peak is for the time being

And plunging down to the floor of the Ocean’s abyss is for the time being;

Being triple-headed and eight-armed is for the time being

And being a figure of a Buddha standing sixteen feet tall or sitting eight feet high is for the time being;

Being a monk’s traveling staff or his ceremonial hossu is for the time being

And being a pillar supporting the temple or a stone lantern before the Meditation Hall is for the time being;

Being a next-door neighbor or a man in the street is for the time being

And being the whole of the great and boundless space is for the time being.

Dogen:

The phrase ‘for the time being’ implies that time in its totality is what existence is, and that existence in all its occurrences is what time is. Thus, ‘being a golden body sixteen feet tall’ refers to a time. And because it is a time, its time will have a wondrous luminosity. It is a complete realization that the whole of time is what the whole of existence is, and that there is nothing more than this.

The ever-present ‘time being’ of which I am speaking cannot be snared like some bird by net or cage: it is what is manifesting before us. It is a time when the heavenly lords and the other celestial inhabitants are now manifesting right and left of us, and are making every effort to do so, even at this very moment. In addition, it is a time when beings of water and land are making every effort to manifest. Beings of all sorts, who are visible or invisible for the time being, are all making every effort to manifest, making every effort to flow on.

The transiting of time and being is not to be thought of as wind blowing the rain from east to west. And it would be inaccurate to say that the whole world is unchanging, or that it is motionless: it is in transition. The flow of time and being is like spring, for instance. The spring has an appearance of being abundant in its burgeoning, and we refer to this as its ‘passage’. We should consider well that the spring ‘passes’ without excluding anything within it. In other words, the passing of spring is, to be sure, a passing of what we humans call ‘spring’. ‘Passing’ is not what spring is, but refers to the passage of the springtime; hence, it is a transition that is now being actualized during the time of spring. 

Mountains are of time: oceans are of time. These are times: were they not times, there could not be any ‘being with It’ here and now.

Furthermore, ‘intending’ refers to the time when the spiritual question manifests before our very eyes; ‘expressing’ refers to the time when one looks up and unbolts the barrier gate; ‘arriving’ refers to the time when body and mind are dropped off; and ‘having not arrived’ refers to the time when this ‘dropping off ’ is left behind [as you go always onward, always ‘becoming Buddha’]. This is the way that you should diligently apply yourself, the way that you should treat whatever arises as ‘just for a while’.

———

There is a sense in which having a body is our coming-in-contact with God. But there is an entirely separate sense in which existing in time is our being-with God. What Dogen calls ‘being with-It’.

There is an innate drive within our psyche which seeks to stop time. To arrive. Dogen tells us that arrival is in fact possible - but only for a time. After arrival, we continue on - once again, for a time.

———

“And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism, Adam Afterman

One aspect here of the wide synthesis between Judaism and different forms of Greek philosophy is the merging of the philosophical terms of “time” and “eternity” with rabbinic terms that previously lacked a clear definition, such as “life of the world to come” (hayyei ha-olam ha-ba), returning to or reentering the garden of Eden/Paradise, and other eschatological and messianic states. The transition from the perception of normal “human” time to the experience of eternity is a radical shift, interpreted in light of traditional Jewish terms related to the achieving of private eschatological or pre-eschatological states. Reaching union with the noetic metaphysical realm and ultimately with God is the experience of eternity associated with the religious vocabulary of the life of the world to come.

God’s availability for human integration becomes actual during special times such as Shabbat and certain holidays. The holiness of Shabbat and the holidays is understood in terms of sacred time, as the opening of time to a higher level or quality of time, the time above time. The philosophic writings include a unique theory of “divine time” as a mediator substance between our corporeal earthly experience of time and the entirely “out of time” eternity. The Kabbalists synthesized such theories with other traditions related to time such as the days of creation, Shabbat, and the holidays—a move that gave birth to new interpretations of the rich religious forms and rituals concerning time.

November 18

I feel this pressure to get everything done as soon as possible. Immediately. I feel the pressure of the future — of the consequences of deferred action — bearing down upon me. Constantly. I must do everything within my power to influence the future in a positive way. I fear any and all negative consequences. This is partially why, until recently, I’ve never been in a serious romantic relationship; I can handle being single far more easily than being in a relationship which I cannot properly manage. Am I a control freak? No. Freak is too harsh. But probably a control idiot. 

The experiment, therefore, is to let go of controlling the future. In turn, this will free up my present to focus on things I love, rather than obeying some future demands.

Stop controlling the future, and start controlling the present.

———

Transcription of a WhatsApp voicenote:

So I think there are two basic approaches. One is to push back against the concept of time, to somehow try to negate it. To say: no, I will not play ball with time. I will try to exist outside of the constraints and opportunities of time.

The second one is to try to say, okay, let's take time as a given, and let's try to organize it to our benefit. Now, that immediately has a bad feeling to it, because it feels like you're trying to escape. You're trying to fix the problem with the problem itself, you know? Like, oh, I feel like time is a pressure, so now let me, like, hypermanage it so it's not a pressure. So of course it's not what I mean. I don't mean hypermanage it. I mean to, if anything, the opposite of hyper. Micromanage it. No. Whatever. Macromanage it. I don't know. Let time be more loose.

So let's start with plan B. Plan B is, okay, don't try to push back against the concept. Let's say, okay, I have 24 hours in a day. I have seven days in a week. I have 365 days in a year. At the moment, my process of organizing the available time is overbearing and uncomfortable. Okay. So now let's try to organize it in a way that's not overbearing and not uncomfortable. I've done this in the past, under different circumstances, of course, but I've done it, so I know what it feels like and what's possible. It just needs to be prioritized.

So, okay, so let's go plan B. Now, what does plan B look like? So again, there are two options here. One option is to take the my current setup and be more loose about it. So let's say I have a current setup where I go to the gym at 7:30 a.m. and wake up at 6 a.m. Well, okay, what if I say I go to the gym between 7 and 8 and I wake up between 6 and 7. Or, you know, I go to work at 11. Okay, what if I say I go to work between 10 and 12? You know, so one thing is to, like, smudge the lines. That sounds very scary to me, but I think that's something that could be good. That's definitely something that happens in Kyrgyzstan. I think in a lot of countries that I live in, they don't really care too much about those artificial lines on the face of the clock. 

The other option is not to smudge the lines, but to create better lines. Let's say I'm feeling pressure because I am working 11 to 6, but oftentimes I get home and there's something I want to take care of, so it's 8 p.m. and I'm taking care of it at home. And maybe I need to have a little bit of a room for myself. You know, the same way that I respect my 11 to 6 for work, I have to respect my 6 to 11 for not working.

Saturday. I've kind of made an excuse for myself. I teach in the evening, so, like, it's already not a complete weekend, so maybe I'll do a little bit of work in the morning. So, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at.

My first step I'm thinking to do is to keep my schedule, keep the lines, and the first step is to just change it to be much more breathable, to create much more empty space. That's really the number one thing. I don't feel a lot of empty space in my day. I don't feel a lot of empty space in my week. I feel a lot of lack of empty space, right, the pressure. That's actually an interesting definition of pressure, right? It's like the inverse of empty space. It's overlapping space.

So that's kind of where I'm starting. I have to think through it, exactly what this looks like, exactly what my ideal state is, exactly how far can I push it before it starts hurting me. Like, you know, do I want to have three days of weekend? Do I want to have eight hours of empty space? What's the extreme that I can push it to before it's, like, okay, is this too much? Because it's holding me back from other things that I care about.

But right now I have a very balanced and enjoyable life, but to some extent I'm packing things in. Maybe not in the way other people pack things in, but in my own way of packing things in. So maybe what I'm trying to say is, I want to unpack.

So anyway, that's where I'm starting from. I obviously have to work through a lot of questions and figure out what it is that I'm looking for. But I'm curious what your thinking is. I'm sure you have a very different thought process about this whole thing.

———

Time is a pace. It’s a rhythm. What I want is not more or less time; what I want is slower time. A slower rhythm. By slow, I mean gentle, soft. Like a gentle wave that gradually builds, crests, and passes away. Not in an instant, but over a duration.

Experiment 1: Do everything at half-pace. Walk slower, work slower, talk slower.

It’s not that I’m doing a lot. It’s that I’m doing it quickly. 

Act like an old person.

———

Last night I rewatched Before Sunrise.

This idea that moments are always caught in the middle. Between birth and death. Like a firefly, they have to be captured in a jar and closely guarded. Otherwise they disappear in the wind.

After the movie ended, I laid back in bed and cried. I thought about all of the moments that I’d been lucky enough to capture.

———

Time as a gift:

Give someone else your time, as a gift.

———

Truth be told, I stopped believing in time years ago 

———

Time as something which can be stolen.

I’ve often felt that I could steal time.

Like if I’m on a long transatlantic flight and I don’t connect to the wifi. Then I’ve stolen some secret hours that I get to keep for myself.

Or if I have a long layover and grab a train into some unknown capital for a coffee and a stroll. I’ve stolen an afternoon.Or if I walk instead of taking the train. Or if I take a deeeeep breath.

I’ve stolen a moment from the world. I’ve stolen a moment from life. Isn’t it divine?