‘I wish I had more time in my life.’
A friend wrote this on his Facebook wall yesterday. It’s a problem I can certainly relate to: I often feel the sands of time slipping through some cosmic hourglass, with too few of the things I plan for and care about being accomplished according to my ideal timescales. And yet, I’ve always been amazed by the capacity of a single day: that in any twenty-four hour period, there’s actually enough time – given the right kind of motivation and alertness in the moment — to accomplish or experience more than we could have imagined. And more significant things, too. A life can be changed in a moment, or we can have a realisation that makes possible what may have evaded us for years.
If I could unlock the potentiality held within more of the cascading packages of time, then I could live life ‘more abundantly’. For many of us, this depth and richness of experience is what we seek, and times in our lives when we feel this way stand out as significant: a kind of ‘super-experience’. Perhaps these are moments when we fell in love, or discovered a new way of life or passion. Certainly, it’s not possible to feel this way all the time: perhaps demotivation or boredom plays a physical function, to stop up having an aneurysm from too much stimulation. It’s very possible that unconsciously or otherwise, many of us want stability and peace above all. ‘Eternal progression’ is only one model, right? But my feeling is that for a good number of us, we seek paradigm-changing moments more often: our capacity for intensity in life has not been reached.
So: how can we capitalise on this unused capacity: latencies in time where we could live more deeply? How do we find and follow our passions? As with everything, ‘knowing is half the battle’, and the process of finding and identifying which experiences, people and projects unlock our passionate responses is the first step. This process requires a willingness to explore, and it stands to reason that whoever explores most widely will have greater chances of finding the best resources. These will be both first-hand experiences, and in the more dense but mediated landscape of second-hand experience: films, books, music and so on. Yet, this gathering process also requires an ability to recognise which resources will work for us, and to capitalise on them as best we can. We will need flexibility, bravery — and practise.
The good news is, that we can practise this process in absolutely any moment. Here we are. Now.
How would you live differently if you knew this was your last day on earth? Your last night? This familiar thought experiment is certainly a way of overcompensating, and shouldn’t be followed to the exclusion of our responsibilities: plans set down through the passions and good judgements of yesterday. We should — certainly in most cases – pay our mortgages, look after our bodies and pay into a pension plan. But equally we should make that phone call we’ve been meaning to, stay up talking with strangers or loved ones into the night, and go to that place we’ve dreamed about but never got round to visiting. Why not go now? Now?
There’s enough time — today and tomorrow, for example – to experience and accomplish more than we had imagined. Reading the great achievements of the subjects of biography testify to this. There’s enough time tonight to have a life-changing experience, if you want to. The line of time will unfold before you, to reveal moments of time within time: almost a limitless fractal of moments that, when examined, sharpen the mind and hold infinite revelation. It’s where we’re meant to live.
We’re deadened to this kind of consciousness by the two-edged sword of safety. It’s possible, for many of us, to live insulated from risk. We experience less directly, and so we feel less. Part of the irrelevance of religion for contemporary society lies in the fortunate reality that we now live (by all previous measures) very safe and satisfied lives. With many of the brutalities experienced by previous generations reduced for us (much of disease, war, violence, lack of education), our need is not for safety and protection, but for personal experience and vulnerability. We’ve read so much self-help, and watched talk shows that endlessly prescribe easy answers for others. As Mormons, we’ve grown up with enough knowledge-based preparation to mean that our lives could be smooth sailing: if we follow the formula.
‘If you don’t partake of the fruit, you can live forever in paradise.’
I have received a gift of life by jumping from the deck of the good ship ‘Smooth Sailing’. Whether I would have made it to some celestial or earthly port if I’d have stayed on board is irrelevant for me: I wouldn’t have been alive to appreciate it. I know that either way, I only have a limited number of days on this earth, and here amongst the waves I feel something real. Sometimes I fight against the currents, and sometimes flow with them. Sometimes I find a piece of driftwood, and that buoys me up for a night. And I believe that in this vast ocean, there are islands that may appear to me — that if I swim towards them, I may find people there who have been made strong by their own struggles in the water.
Time in the water… it can feel like forever. Both ways: the mind wanders, and we feel the immediacy of the body. This is life.
Tell me about your experiences in these places. How long do you spend ‘in the water’? How long on ‘islands’? Where are you swimming? And what happens while you’re travelling? What discoveries have you made while unfolding the fractal line of time?
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I went to London yesterday to celebrate a friend’s birthday. We wandered around, ate and watched a musical. I was thinking on the train ride home how strange time is when you travel, it seems to both contract and expand. The day seemed really long, but went by so quickly. Out of the normal flow of my life (making food, laundry, writing, shuttling kids back and forth) I had many moments during the day when I was really awake and completely present in the moment. During the show, I heard a voice that made me feel so full I felt like crying (even more beautiful because I didn’t expect to be moved) and I felt the beat of the drums in my chest, they were so loud and powerful. But there were other smaller moments, just letting myself be on the train, watching the crowds, feeling the heat of the sun.
This morning, I woke up and slipped back into the less conscious flow of daily living, I cleaned some messes made in my absence, fed the children and helped my husband get them ready for church. And, then I went to church on my own — a Quaker service with very few people in a drab building. Yet, in that stillness, I had the sense of time unfolding again, of being very present. But it was bittersweet. Two of my children cried when they realized I wasn’t coming with them this morning. I cried as I drove to church, feeling like I had abandoned them. I feel caught between the tides, not sure how to balance the needs of daily living with the fullness you are writing about. But, I can’t tread water my whole life. Not when I can see the vastness of the water or islands that I need to explore.
Heidi, thank you for sharing your experience: it’s right that there’s another side to the slowing of time, where some moments or nights can seem to be expanded almost beyond our capacity with pain or heartache. I really feel that when your kids get a little older, they’ll be able to understand why you’re taking the steps that you are, and will admire your strength, in following the direction your heart leads, even when there’s immediate heartache. I’ve never been to a Quaker service, but it really sounds like the kind of place where time can expand to bring us into contact with the revelations that we need: both in accepting where we are, and illuminating where we are to go.
I used to think of time as working along two axes, or modes: that there was an ‘autopilot’, or less-conscious, narrative mode, where we chug along the ‘tracks’ (I was thinking trains, for some reason: and was pleased to see that in the first scene of ‘Before Sunrise’): this is necessary. Then there are moments where we can move between tracks, on the other axis: moments of deeper consciousness, reflection or decision. We can choose to continue on the same track, or diverge. Perhaps my converging of moments of heightened consciousness with decision-making points is a reflection of my feeling that it’s best to make our minds up when we feel inspired: but I think it also happens somewhat automatically – we feel time slowing and gripping us when we decide.
Travel is an interesting one, because, for example, when I’m on holiday, I feel that I’m in a special place where all the pressures and responsibilities of life and postponed. I can’t change anything there: but I often feel like I’m getting information for when I get home: ideas and ‘fuel’ for projects. Kindof like I used to feel about the temple, actually. There too, time sped up and slowed down, to the extreme. :)
Andy, I came across this quote from Kurt Vonnegut this morning and thought of this post. He said:
He’s talking about writing, but it applies to living equally well. BTW, when my children came home from church, everything was fine. The abandonment I had worried about was imagined.
That quote describes my feeling very well. I always hated that story about the king who hires the stagecoach driver who keeps as far away from the edge as possible… he’s obviously a rubbish driver, and/or a coward. I’m not into recklessness… but one of the things that I dislike most about certain religious worldviews is the invention of fake dangers. We talk about fear and courage a lot here on D&S… God knows there’s enough fear in the world without manufactured and propagated fear.
Glad things were okay when you got home from church. :)
Note to self: need to read more Vonnegut!!