What's the Rush? (Part 3): Yes, it IS about time
It's never really about time or money, said a wise but mistaken psychotherapist.
Yes, it IS about time, really. Time is change, for one thing, and change is our only true master. Now I write, but in 25 minutes it will be time to go to the podiatrist. Later it will be time to go home, time to go to sleep, time to wake up, time to work, time to cook, time to clean. Time seems to move too fast, meaning that I am too slow to change. I wish I could be time, as Zen Master Dogen teaches; I would be the clock, the moving part, the changing thing. The problem is that I need time to truly absorb this lesson and I'm in too much of a rush to stop and….
Time is collaboration. If I'm meeting you at two o'clock, we both agree to pace our changing selves to arrive at the same moment in the same place.
Time is a decision, a commitment to do one thing and not another. Those of us with attentional problems have trouble grasping this. All those other possibilities chatter away, fragmenting the mind and decimating the pursuit of depth.
In the interior of my being, I sense, is a treasure cove to which the entrance fee is time. There, in the interior, things unravel, unfold and reveal themselves slowly. They do not respond to pressure, to commands. They do not sprint! At the entrance to the cove, I am told to leave my company behind. Buddha did. All the heroes who found their way were alone. I am no hero but I need to be alone. Not that I am ever really alone. Like most people, I constantly feel the presence of relationships through my thoughts and feelings. But when I am not required to respond with conversation, I can 'hear myself think.' Given time, the thoughts become deeper and more connected to each other, and then they begin to speak to me.
Like many people in this day and age, I am not given juicy blocks of time for this magical process. Some of you know that I have previously demanded empty time. Sadly, I must now admit that the practice lasted only several weeks, only as long as I maintained the energy to push aside other needs. Stop pushing and they display their dominance. Bullies is what they are. Nasty needs.
But what am I talking about? I'd love to blame it on my family. Their needs are more important than mine? Certainly the culture tells me that, but I should be able to stand up to that downtrodden old horse. Not to mention my practice of embracing all activity as equally worthy. It's more than that. If I install 2 hours of 'empty time,' where do I put the hours necessary for daily tasks--making food, cleaning up, getting dressed; or paid work; or the gazillion other structured activities?
Where, indeed? That's the question. There is only one way to answer it:
The Schedule.
What is so freeing about a Zen retreat is that everything is scheduled--no decisions to make. I'm greedy. I want to be free all the time, every day. To do that, I need a schedule. Not just any schedule but an honest schedule, one that incorporates all the things I want and need in proper proportion. Taking a tip from The Now Habit, I began to document all the stuff that takes time: meals, cleanup, transportation, appointments, and so on, and discovered that there is almost no time leftover for anything extra. This is oddly clarifying, almost freeing but not quite. It frees me from the self-blame--I should be using my time better. Why can't I get anything done? What is wrong with me?
Almost free. The next step is to shove in some of that time I need--empty time, play time, whatever I want to call this thing that no one else values but me. As I shove, something gets kicked out. Then I have to negotiate with my collaborators in life. Honey, can you walk the dog on Thursday after your long work/school day even though you're tired/have homework/have to make dinner so that I can hang around doing nothing long enough to open my soul?
And after I manage that, I'm almost free, because that when the real work begins. That's when I become time itself, the beat of my heart moves the clock forward. I am being time and time disappears. Hey, what's the rush?
Letters to the OGRe
Yes, indeeeed! What you
Yes, indeeeed!
What you wrote and Julie's response makes me want to share here something I wrote a couple of years ago. If it's too long, please feel free to delete.
Some Ways of Looking at Time
Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of (Ben Franklin).
The time between two sunrises is divided into twenty-four equal parts, which we call hours and others call heurs, horas, chasy, and many other things. And each of these equal parts is again divided into sixty equal parts we call minutes, each of which is again divided into sixty equal parts we call seconds. So, what does all this tell us about time?
A sundial’s slim shadow circles in silence from sunrise to sunset—today, tomorrow, and tomorrow.
Morning passes too quickly. In the light of day, clocks tick or flicker, telephones ring, neighbors come and go, the forest buzzes with cars passing below, the kettle boils, the toaster pops, the refrigerator hums, the appointment presses, the orchids gaze out with parched leaves, the woodpecker pecks at the dwindling hill of black and white seed, shooting expectant glances at my window. Then the computer boots up, the printer zings, the clocks keep ticking or flashing, and all things natural and all things mechanical move faster than I do.
Time is always a tick and a flash ahead of where I am.
The afternoon has a motion all its own. The stimulants of morning have begun to work and I make the calls, write the messages, polish poems, make visits, go for walks, bring home supplies, and before I know it, the sun has set. Another day gone and I’ve only just begun.
My hourglass has a leak in it somewhere, but I don’t know how big it is or how fast the sand is running out.
The night wraps me in its glistening solitude. My heart quickens in its melodious silence, and in the silver stillness I return to myself. In the dark of night the sundial sleeps while the hourglass weeps and the clock keeps ticking.
On my deathbed, I’ll sit up and plead, Wait, I need just one more tick to get it all done!
Time...
Thank you both for enriching my conversation. Yes, Julie I agree that the Nike attitude--Just DO IT!--works not at all for summoning creative activity. To be a 'real writer' or a 'real videomaker' or a 'real' anything, we must FOOL AROUND. As mothers in this culture, making that happen is a truly heroic endeavor. Mum (aka Marina), I know you've been through it. Thank you for the poem that expresses the frustration oh so well. Here's to one more tick!
Yes!
Thank you for this! Yes! There is SO much shame for (I'm going to say it!) women around time. Women's magazines and spiritual teachers and those who try to help us with our creativity and exercise gurus and our mothers and random people in the grocery store and even our friends who want to help us be happier, all preach a version of this same sermon:
"Well, if you just do X (healthy, desirable, creative, or useful) thing for 20 minutes a day (or whatever the number is), you could get A LOT DONE!
No. Uh-oh. That assumes we are machines, that we can quickly move from one kind of activity to another. With the novel I've been trying to write for, you know, all my life, I have to wait until the end of the day. Cook or clean up (never both!), help the kids, then just FOOL AROUND for awhile. Really! I can't go straight from cleaning up the kitchen and helping kids with math homework to creating fiction. I have to screw around with Facebook or read a magazine article or talk to my husband or something to cleanse the palate. But my brother (a writer with no children) says, "Well, if you would just get up at 5am, you'd have an hour and a half every day to write. No excuses." But I can't think that early, and I have no desire to be any more sleep-deprived than I am.
But before your piece, I blamed myself and wished to be otherwise, and thought that if I was a real writer, I would make it happen. Thank you!