Enough - Time (part 1.)

“You’ve got too much time on yer ‘ands mate” (your hands).

Many times, people have said this to me and I’m sure many more they’ve thought it. We all have the same amount of time, broadly speaking. So, this is a derogatory observation aimed at fluffing up the importance of the person thinking or saying it. It is meant to indicate how much more industrious they are than me. My thinking and engaging in active debate are not, however, me being lazy, feckless, or indolent. My ability to think, deeply, is both my contribution to the world and, unavoidable. The time I spend being so-called argumentative is for me, training.

Persisting with this line of thought, most people spend most of their time scrabbling and scraping due to the consequences of procreation. To this I say, people have always procreated, it hasn’t stopped everyone from thinking. Should it prevent most people from thinking deeply and being able to engage in the uniquely human gifts of abstract thought and debate?

Most people treat thinking like supporting a football team. Is this not the problem? Is it not the case that taking a side, a ’stand’, and defending it to the death, is the root of our problems? Is it not the idea that ‘finding our tribe’ causes us to become embedded in un-thinking dogma?

If it helps, my ability to think, deeply, to unravel complex situations, to follow and give life to threads and ideas, is what I ‘do’. People pay me for doing it. That ability does not exist only during prescribed work hours. Should we have to justify the time spent thinking and debating as monetarily productive though?

Should we not think deeply about wide-ranging things? Should we not test our ideas and listen to others to refine them? I believe we should. I believe we must. Do we want leaders that are focused on their own career, status, money, power, position etc. or, do we want leaders that are capable, indeed compelled to, high and complex thought? It’s a leading question if you’ll excuse the pun.

The word philosophy comes from “love of knowledge”. I think people should want knowledge, to be wise. Where are we going to end up if we give up on the gifts that being humans afford us and react like tribal pre-humans or animals, bandying into groups of base common interest and seeing everything that is not useful as a threat? Are we not heading back down that road already?

So, time. As I was painting today, on a big canvas, for a commission…

The very fact that I was painting, on a Monday, will I imagine trigger some to judge me as feckless or lazy. Perhaps they may be jealous? However, by adding “for a commission” then it’s OK, it’s a worthwhile and worthy endeavour; I’m doing it for money. However, what if I had added that I’m not getting paid for this commission? Would the pendulum swing back? Then if I explained that it will be displayed in the foyer of a prominent and prestigious city firm and be available to buy, so I’m loaning the painting at zero cost and if it sells, I can replace it. Then I’m back on the side of the Angels and all makes sense again?

Interesting isn’t it. If there’s money or business opportunity connected with my painting, it all makes sense and it’s all fine and dandy. If not, I’m sure some; many probably, would judge me as being unworthy, as ‘wasting time’. Especially as this is a ‘workday’, unless of course I’m retired (I’m not).

I am lucky that I can paint. However (and here I go justifying it), I paint in my ‘office’, it’s also my studio. I finished painting at 1am this morning and I started at 10.30pm last night. I was making some adjustments after having thought about the painting, or rather, allowed thoughts to come to me. The idea that I may have “too much time on my hands”, or anyone for that matter, IS the problem which infests the thinking of the stone-aged ‘back the office’ mob. Unless we are yoked to the place and means of work, under the watchful eye of some ‘manager’, we are wasting time, and being unproductive…

I have also been making bread today, and I made lunch, AND I’m writing this. Am I wasting time? I have time to do these things and at other times, I have deadlines to meet. This is an extremely productive way to be. It means I can think. Thinking is good when what you do is based on the quality of thought. I do engage in a lot of debate on LinkedIn, as I say, it’s training. Perhaps it’s better than producing a tiktok of me doing a funny dance with another unlikely person? Much less entertaining perhaps.

Today on LinkedIn I noticed two particularly inciteful posts. Both were thoughtful and explained. One was a well-known professional board director and the other lays floors. Both made their contributions during ‘working hours’. Which one has “too much time on their hands”?

In fact, I began a newsletter. I have hundreds of people signed up. I have an obligation, or at least I feel I have, to write well on interesting subjects. To help raise the thinking of people who read my newsletter and to encourage thinking and debate. I don’t get paid of course, but I am contributing, usefully, to humanity. I am engaging the gifts bestowed upon me by dint of being human.

The point of this musing about time is that time spent thinking deeply and engaging with others, at a serious and difficult level, is a good use of time. It is a luxury which requires some sacrifices sometimes. However, platforms like LinkedIn are full of thoughtless, reactionary posts and replies. Many personal exchanges are unthinking or manipulated to gain favour or promotion. None of this elevates us. Isn’t it better to be fearlessly making thoughtful comments and debating when we can?

I think as much of our time as possible should be spent exercising the unique gifts of our humanity. Making babies and scrabbling about for resources is not a uniquely human gift. It should not be the “be-all and end-all” and debasing people who are not consumed by this is stupid. Thinking too deeply should not be something about which people are derogatorily accused. Spending time engaging in the debate rather than spitting opinions at people or the wider world, as facts, is imbecilic. Putting considered ideas out there and testing them is self-actualizing, if not transcendental. FFS aren’t we supposed to be encouraging psychological safety and the sharing of ideas?

Time then, having too much of it. Too much to think and engage in useful discourse, widely and without fear. There can’t be enough of that kind of time. Time spent scurrying around the hamster wheel… not so much, to be avoided or kept to a minimum. You don’t want too much of that kind of time in your life.?