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!”

A parent's view of existentialism

 A philosopher facebook friend had a baby a few years ago. While trying to figure out what that baby needed one day, he took some notes:

So, basically the routine with baby is pretty simple. I pick her up and sit down and hold her and talk to her and smile at her until she smiles back. We stay like this for as long as possible until she starts expressing agitation. Then there's basically a rundown of options. First, check the diaper and if it needs changing see if we can go back to normal after that. If not, a bottle if it's been more than two hours. If it's not been two hours, I try burping her, putting her on the playmat and trying the bouncy seat. If none of that works, I try to put her to bed. If that won't work, I put her in the carriage and walk her all around the park until she falls asleep.

If none of that works and she's still upset, I accept that even she has no idea what she wants so there is no way to satisfy her. She has an insatiable and unbearable emptiness that lacks any recognizable means of being filled. It's essentially an existential crisis. So we read some Camus together while she screams. Which doesn't fix her problem any more than it fixes anyone else with an existential crisis---since he is better at confusing people into nihilism than getting them out of it with his lousy misrepresentation of the human condition. But I figure Sophie is French and she should learn the vacuity of 20th Century French philosophy sooner rather than later so that we can get her on to better things in preschool.

His son probably understands the vacuity of Camus better than I do by now, but I did come across this, a speech by Albert Camus, reflecting on the world after World War II. It is still relevant now. Perhaps more, as we struggle to determine if we have prevented another massive conflict or are on the brink of one. 

I know we are all busy, so here is a summary of the part where he answers, "what are we to do?"

1.       Reject acquiescent and fatalistic thinking.

2.       Eliminate capital punishment and torture and reduce anything that increases fear in the world.

3.       Put politics behind reflective thought, and focus on our own values and aspirations.

4.       Create expressions of positive values.

5.       Speak your truth, while being aware of when your values are shared, and when they are not.