When Time is Sacred

In one of my more recent past lives, that is, a part of this life that I am living, I looked for traditions within religions that could and maybe should be kept. It was sometimes challenging. Sam Harris does it like he's ordering coffee. 

Sam Harris on Deep Time

He and Oliver Burkeman discuss the simple topic of time management but in the context of the not-so-simple question of the meaning of life. In the last ten minutes or so, they get to the topic of how difficult it is for any three adults to arrange an evening together or even a lunch (unfortunately, you need to subscribe to get past the 37 minute mark). This includes times of pandemic but it was around long before that, with the demands of work that includes beepers and emails and being on-call, even if you are self-employed. 

Oliver brings up the idea of rules of temporal organization that exists in religions, the calling to prayer, the holy days that we sometimes dread but bring us into contact with the community. They are somewhat arbitrary, an interruption to the things you think you need to accomplish in life, but serve as a reminder that you never finish all the tasks or complete all the goals of that lifetime, that you never win the battle with time. 

The Sabbath is supposed to be about anything except "getting things done", aka work. If you don't fill it up with mindless entertainment, contemplation can emerge, something spontaneous that wouldn't occur while your mind is focused on a task. As Sam says, "There are social norms and structures, some of which we've inherited and need to give a modern, non-embarrassing gloss to, and some of which we need to invent. That would punctuate all of this."

Or, as Hunter S. Thompson put it,  “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”