TIME How we screwed up our relationship with the universe, and how to get it back

By Dr. Eric Zabiegalski and Per Brogaard Berggren

We’d like to give those monks a good talking to!?Somewhere in the year 1100 a group of German monks thought it would be a good idea to put a clock face in a village tower and then convince the local townsfolk to pay attention to it, tracking and planning their movements in seconds, minutes, and hours.?I suspect our relationship with the universe hasn’t been right since.?Whats wrong with that? Like a slight of hand card trick, we were noticing the wrong thing.?Our focus became diverted, and we suddenly began missing what was important.?This incident, however, is just one of many tone-deaf inconsideration’s that’s been heaped upon the cosmos by humankind for centuries. ?And unfortunately, we show no signs of slowing, we’re still committing them.?What can we do to insult the universe (and the planet) next? I shudder to think. While it could be argued that the heavens will “take it” like it always does, I feel it may eventually have enough of it, and us.?In the words of neurobiologist Dr. Rudy Tanzi, “our only job as humans is to create (not control). Once we try to control things the universe says uh uh, you’re trying to control? That’s my job, and then you go extinct.” ?Is our concept of time, and our obsession with it, one contrivance the universe is rapidly tiring of??And one which may ultimately contribute to our demise?

The problem

What’s the problem with our well-intentioned monks? ?It’s in large part due to the universes concept of time vs the way in which we think of and use it, our concept.?It’s also due to our very makeup, and the curious predicament that is human consciousness. When the topic turns to time, a few thoughts instantly come to mind. First, I think of the lyrics to the Pink Floyd song “Time” form the album “The Dark Side of the Moon.” After that I think of another song by the Talking Heads “Once in a Lifetime” (the song is worth a watch on video), in my opinion one of the best. The point here is that there are some big differences in the way the universe thinks of time compared to us, and that time is what you do in it rather than the construct (structure) of it.?As Rudyard Kipling once noted it’s worth spending at least some of your time figuring out why, how, what, where, when and with who you want to spend it. So, in reality time only matters (it’s only a thing) if it’s coupled to an event, or a thing. It’s also worthwhile to recall the words of Edgar Morin that “any structure, constrains the elements of it and their development.” As a structure, time is no exception.?Peter Koestenbaum indicates this quite concisely when he says “Note the paradox. You are time.” So time wraps around its objects and events, and in so takes on their unique character, whether it be a heavenly body in the celestial sea of space, or a human being meticulously living out their mortal, terrestrial, life on Earth. “Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown, waiting for someone or something to show you the way.”

Misdirection

The fact that our attention has been so completely misdirected is not the sole fault of our well-meaning monks, it’s inherent in us.?If not that, we’d figure out some other way in which to obfuscate life, and ourselves. They just made things much, much, worse by feeding our dread with the advent of a mechanical public clockwork that fires off seconds and minutes like existential bullets.?And a mesmerizing new shiny object to stare at and distract us from more important things. ?As a species, we’ve been tracking the changing of events and calling it the passing of time long before they came along anyway.?Scientists have found evidence of humankind using a lunar calendar as far back as 6000 years ago.?

The nature of time

What’s the true nature of time and what can we do to better align ourselves with it, hopefully repairing our relationship with a loving, but increasingly ambivalent universe? ?What follows are a series of monthly articles outlining specific areas where Dane co-author Per Brogaard Berggren and I think humanity has (universally) gone astray, along with ideas regarding what might be done about fixing it.?For Per and me, our hope is that these ideas resonate with you and change your way of thinking enough to at least repair your relationship with the universe and time.?After reading this series, our sincere hope is that you’ll no longer encounter days which feel wasted, or experiences that feel empty or missed. When that happens, you’ll understand times true nature, and use.??

The tyranny of time

I used to call it the tyranny of the timesheet. It’s the phenomena that the office timesheet seems to be the most important thing in the universe, or at least at work.?It feels as if almost everywhere I’ve ever been employed, productivity is measured, recorded, and accounted for in the passing of time and the scrutiny of the all-important time sheet. ?On one hand its true, accountability can easily be logged and viewed here, and in so used as a measure (albeit speculative), of performance and accomplishment, oh, and for monetary billing (insert wink-face here).?But what often feels like constant harassment to “fill out your timesheet” hides a contradiction and masks what should be the real importance of the passing of time for us humans, what we did within those moments and their efficacy on reality.?Time, as created in our image often feels tyrannical, arbitrary, meaningless, and even cruel. How often have you found yourself racing against it for time’s sake, recording its passing to validate existence, relevance, or meaning??

Tangibleization

?In the old-world view, the “tangibleization” of time (to make the invisible visible) was thought of as one of humankinds most significant achievements, and with little updating and revision it still serves the elemental activities of our life, from the causal to the serious, and the unstructured to the mechanistic. This conjured up creation we’ve named “time” (at best an ethereal concept in nature) was forged into a conventional tool for tracking and tracing man’s activity of man, by man, and gave us a feeling of power and control, of harnessing heaven and Earth and reigning dominion over natures flow, and others.?Producing tangible worthwhile human concepts like productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, it permeates human life with the idea of the real, the material, the manageable, effort, and the constrained and constrainable. However, time is a shell, a mostly qualitative and fabricated phenomenon, not a quantitative one, that sentence is worth repeating to yourself. ?Oh sure, it feels real, and like it helps to have it to spend in liberal amounts.?Yet more real is how you spend this bracketed space, than how much you create, have, or have left. ?Repeating the sentiment of Koestenbaum’s paradox, “time and events are extrinsically linked,” so with you.??

Life time

This new qualitative “time of life” spin on your father’s convention of time pertains to “right moments” more than it does ticking clocks.?Again, Akin to our slight of hand card trick, the mind is misdirected away from the traditional details, and, this time, towards more (universally) intuitive others. ?And this is not a causal production; it is highly emerging and interdependent on events, and timing. If you think about it, the idea of harnessing time is really one of controlling, the individual, you, the universe, and remember what Rudy Tanzi said, control is the job of the universe, our only job is to create. It’s a trespassing of a species on nature of sorts, essentially coming down to a what we want to do, or do not want to do, endeavor. And structure and levels of autonomy are often the tradeoffs – considering that we have one life, these types of tradeoffs, between organizations and individuals, and nature, become critical.?At times like these it’s good to remember, and remind yourself, you are time, and time bends around you. So a balance is needed as time is a structure of human creation. ?Awareness of how you organize it is required for life, and the potentials, and downsides, are great.

?What is it about?

To paraphrase Luciano Floridi: “It’s not about structure; it’s not about non-structure – it’s about the relationship between both,” meaning it is both/and, and not either/or– just think about life without causality (relationships), one solely in complexity, would that be life? Finally, regarding work, an endeavour we spend most of our adult time pursuing, and time as a structure, Erich Fromm said: “True freedom’s not the absence of structure – letting employees go off and do whatever they want – but rather a clear structure that enables people to work within established boundaries in an autonomous and creative way.” Time’s a scaffolding from which to climb, build, and create (not control), and flexibility is preconditioned by the stability of structure. Join us next month when we discuss more on the true nature, and use of time.?

Dr. Zabiegalski and Per Brogaard Berggren are available to talk to your organization or venue about ambidexterity research or speak informatively and eloquently about organizational culture, organizational leadership, strategy, learning, complexity, IT, business neuroscience, creativity, mindfulness, talent management, personal success, emotional intelligence, Action Learning, and storytelling. Contact Eric, or Per about a talk, keynote presentation, or workshop today!