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	The Notion of Time By Emmanuel Tchividjian

In Alice, in Alice in Wonderland, says: "If you knew Time as I do, you would not speak of wasting it as if it was a thing. Time is a person." The notion of time has probably the greatest influence on how we perceive our lives and therefore how we actually live. From our notion of time, we have a better understanding of other concepts such as beginning, end, evolution and progress. The word “time” may be the most used word in the English language. If you search in Google you will find 819 million entries. No other word comes close, not sex (401 M), man (383 M), money (258), or God (132 M.).

There are basically two distinct concepts of time, one linear and the other cyclical. In the linear concept, life is made up of consecutive events that are irreversible and move only in one direction, from the past into the future. In the cyclical concept, human existence is repeated very much like what is observed in nature with the recurrence of the seasons.

In antiquity, eclipses were precisely foretold but time in daily life was approximate, summer hours were longer than winter hours. The different methods of measuring time were based on counting the cycle of regularly occurring phenomena such as night and day (the rotation of the earth), tides, and harvest. Our present way of measuring time, of 24 hours, 60 minutes and 60 seconds, probably comes from the ancient Sumerians. In the Middle Ages, because of religious activities, hours in a day became more precise. Public time-telling began in 1335, in the Church of San Gottardo in Milan, where bells first rang once at 1 a.m. and culminated with 24 chimes at midnight. It is only since the middle of the seventeenth century that time-measuring instruments became widespread and thus influenced the rhythm of daily activities. The minute hand on watches only appeared at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Religious views

In most religious views, existence does not end with this life. Could eternity, which by definition never ends, be the best antonym of time?

Judaism

According to Maimonides (Guide of the Perplexed), time is composed of the past that is gone, a future that does not exist and a present that serves only as a limit between the two. Sacha Stern, Reader of Jewish Studies at the University of London and author of Time and Process in Ancient Judaism, says that the notion of time as an entity is completely absent in early rabbinic literature, Jewish Hellenistic literature and Qumran sources. Time is viewed as “points in time” or finite periods of time as opposed to time as a continuum, or time as a whole. In Jewish mysticism literature, however, we find the idea that man can apprehend the “upper world” by taking control over his life and thus transcend the limitations of time and space. This will allow him to fulfill the purpose of his life and achieve tranquility and endless, unbounded enjoyment while he is still living in this world. The poet King David says: “Teach us to number our days so that we may apply our hearts to wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

In the religious views we have the concept of “sacred time” and “secular time.” Abraham Joshua Heschel explains in The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man that in Judaism, the Sabbath is a holy time set apart, from the rest of the ordinary weekdays. Once a week, time has to be sanctified, set apart, and that every hour is unique, exclusive and precious. It is a time of joy “that can sooth all sadness away.” As it is written: “Sanctify the Sabbath by choice meals, by beautiful garments; delight your soul with pleasure and I will reward you for this very pleasure” (Deuteronomy Rabba 3:1).

Christianity

In a Christian view, time is seen as a parenthesis within eternity. Roman Church Father Saint Augustine believed that time was an irrevocable process from Creation to Judgment. Yet he was aware of the difficulty in understanding the concept. In his famous autobiography, Confessions, he says:

"What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled."

Carl Henry, the famous Protestant theologian, described time as:

"The divinely created sphere of God's preserving and redemptive work, and the arena of man's decision on his way to an eternal destiny."

In Christianity as in the other monotheistic religions of Judaism and Islam, time will
be consummated in a climactic and catastrophic phenomenon called "the Apocalypse."
The French translation for the last book of the New Testament, Revelation, is also called “the Apocalypse” which means the ‘End-Time.’

Islam

According to the Koran, a man shall be asked five things on the day of resurrection: How he spent his life, how he grew old, how he acquired his wealth, how he spent it, and what he did with the knowledge he had. Islam insists on the importance of not wasting time. In the Koran it is written: “There are two blessings which many people lose: health and free time for doing good” (Bukhari 8/421).

Eastern religions

In the Eastern religious tradition, life is repeated through reincarnation. It is in the Buddhist view that an individual’s good behavior in any one of his successive lives may release him from the perpetual recurrence of lives, also called the “Sorrowful Wheel.” Hinduism views the concept of time in a cosmic perspective. Hindus believe the process of creation moves in cycles and therefore is never ending: “Begins to end and ends to begin.” Death is not seen as the end of life but a gateway to the next cycle, which is birth and reincarnation. This is in parallel to the cyclic patterns and rhythms of nature.

Science

The scientific concept of time is one of a unique, absolute and universal reference that can be measured objectively by clocks and chronometers. Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity proposed that time is not constant and that clocks run at different speed depending on the relative motion of the clocks. He once explained his theory in a non-scientific way when he said:

"When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you
sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity."

Today the scientific community agrees that time is not an independent, constant entity but an interdependent space-time continuum. Stephen Hawking, the British theoretical physicist and professor of mathematics at Cambridge, is maybe the most widely known scientist today. His book A Brief History of Time was published in 1988 and has sold more than 15 million copies in 40 languages. It may very well be the most popular book ever written on a scientific topic. Professor Hawking believes that the universe had a beginning in a fairly recent past. However, he says, “Many people were unhappy with the idea that the universe had a beginning, because it seemed to imply the existence of a supernatural being who created the universe. It is difficult to logically imagine a beginning without also accepting an end.”

Time measuring instruments

Obelisks, monolithic structures with a quadrangular base placed upright and ending with a pointed top, were built in Egypt as early as 3500 B.C. Their shadows gave people the ability to divide the day in two parts by indicating noon. Sundials appeared later and divided the day with more precision. The first minute was recorded 400 years ago. Water, candles and sand have all been used over the years to measure time. Today, the atomic clock can measure the billionth of a second.

Psychological impact

The idea of time provokes strong emotions. Saint Thomas Aquinas believed that there are four principal emotions: Happiness, Sadness, Hope and Fear. While happiness and sadness are concerned with the past and present, hope and fear are concerned with the future. It seems that humankind has always tried to conspire to annul the effects of time. The irreversible nature of time brings angst because of the ultimate sense of our demise. The French philosopher Henri Bergson, in his Time and Free-Will, an Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, demonstrates that the continuity of introspective experience brings about what he called a stream of consciousness. In other words, our successive experiences allow us to discover who we are. Our experience of time brings us the sense that we exist. As the artist Samuel Bak says: 

"Man's consciousness of his mortality, of the brevity of his passage from dust to
dust, makes him look at what existed before him and will what will continue
after. He lives in a 'stream of time.'"

Our perception of time changes as we grow up. Children do not think about the past as we do, and usually do not worry about the future. They live more in the "now." For
children, an afternoon of games or a two-hour nap seems like an eternity. If you ask a young child which was more recent, his or her birthday or Christmas, you will find that many will have a difficult time answering correctly.

We are aware of the uncertainties of the future and make plans based on our expectation of coming events. Trying to predict the future has always been a major part of our lives and has become an industry. We always had astrologers, such as Nostradamus, fortunetellers who read from crystal balls, observe tea leaves or practice palm reading. Even Wall Street analysts create expectations on a company’s profits or next-quarter dividends. If a company does not meet the expectations, its stock might very well drop.

The angst about the future has always been reflected in artistic expression both in literature and cinema.

H.G. Wells is considered by many as the father of modern science fiction. In his major fictional work, The Time Machine, he imagined a human race of the future divided in two distinct species: the weak (the Eloi) and the strong (the Morlocks.) Wells, as well as many other science fiction writers, wanted to change society. Wells was particularly concerned with the condition of women and the poor. His work was widely accepted by both the public and literary critics. He once said: “Every time I see an adult on a bicycle I no longer despair of humanity.”

Stephen Spielberg, in his science fiction movie Minority Report, imagined a futurist society that utilized psychic technology to allow law enforcement to arrest and convict murderers before they commited their crimes. Few might know that in preparation for the movie, Spielberg commissioned a think tank of leading experts in psychology, city landscape, and future weaponry to brainstorm on what could be realistic conditions of society in 2045. 

Here and now

Professor Eckart Tolle, a former research scholar at Cambridge University, makes the point in his book The Power of Now that human beings have a compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation.

In his book he makes the point that guilt, resentment, grievances, sadness and bitterness are caused by too much concern about the past, and unease, anxiety, tensions, stress and worry are caused by too much concern about the future. Thus we miss the joy of the moment, of the “now.” The present moment is all that we will ever have.

In the movie The Hours, one of the protagonists, Clarissa Vaughn, played by Meryl Streep, says to her daughter as she recalls how in her young adulthood she woke up one day feeling the world was full of possibility and thought: “So, this is the beginning of happiness, this is where it starts. It never occurred to me it wasn’t the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment … right then.”

In the recent bestseller French Women Don’t Get Fat, author/CEO of Veuve Clicquot, Mireille Guiliano, makes the point that the cause of obesity in America is not the absence of diets but rather that people are in too much of a hurry. They do not take the time to enjoy the moment. Such moments should include a judicious consumption of food and wine, in moderation. Such an appreciation of the different moments of our days adds to the quality of life, or “joie de vivre.”

Time can also be seen as an asset, a limited and secret capital we all have received and can use or dispose of as we please. Queen Elizabeth I, at the end of her life, said:

"All my possessions for a moment of time.”

The expression “time is money” is attributed to Benjamin Franklin, but the paying of wages for a day’s work has been in practice since antiquity.

In the Old Kingdom of Egypt, workmen were paid a daily wage of ten loaves of bread and two jugs of beer. Interest on money loaned is also an ancient practice. In ancient Greece, the fenu, or interest paid on money borrowed, was calculated either on a monthly or a yearly basis.

Today, economists and investors anxiously await Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s comments to determine whether interest rates will rise or fall. Interest rates have a very important role on the economy in general.

Ruder·Finn, like other PR firms, uses hourly rates as a basis for fees it charges clients. It is the best way to measure value? The public relations practice is based on experience and relationships, which might have taken years to develop. Thus a five-minute conversation with a senior editor of a major newspaper may result in a cover story and have direct financial impact on the client’s finances.

Time management

Managing our time is not an easy task. Our daily lives are charged with tasks and obligations. Most time management books seem to be very technical, offering practical advice. Amazon.com offers 1,194 titles on time management. The title of just one of them, Lee Silber’s Time Management for the Creative Person: Right-Brain Strategies for Stopping Procrastination, Getting Control of the Clock and Calendar, and Freeing Up Your Time and Your Life, seems to give you all the answers.

Most self-help books on time management stress the importance of setting priorities. Time is a limited resource. However, we should never say that we did not have enough time to complete a task. It can never be true. What we really mean is that we had more important things to do, or different priorities. Estimating the time a task will take is difficult. We have less time than we think.

In a recent study conducted by Gal Zauberman of the University of North Carolina and John Lynch Jr. of Duke University, it was found that when people think of the future, they believe that they will have more time to do things than they do in the present. This leads to overcommitment. The researchers also learned that the expectation of a surplus of any given resource was larger for time than money. People tend to idealize the future.

David Finn, co-founder and Chairman of the Ruder Finn Group, is well aware of this tendency and hence multiplies by three his estimate of how long a task will take him. He says that “time is elastic.” In an article published in the Harvard Business Review entitled “Stop Wasting Valuable Time,” Michael Mankins, managing partner of Marakon Associates, a management consulting firm, makes the point that companies waste what he considers their most precious resource: the time of their top executives. In a survey of Chief Executives of 187 companies with a market capitalization of $1 billion, he found that they spent too much time discussing issues that have little or no direct impact on company values. One global firm spent more time selecting the company’s holiday card than debating its Africa strategy.

The author offered seven techniques for a better and more productive use of their time: 1. Deal with operations separately from strategy

2. Focus on decisions, not discussions

3. Measure real value of every item on the agenda

4. Get issues off the agenda as quickly as possible

5. Put real choices on the table

6. Adopt a common decision-making process and standards

7. Make a decision stick

A better understanding of time will allow us to better celebrate life and have a more meaningful life, but we should remain humble and admit that we still know very little. As Albert Einstein said:

The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books -- a mysterious order which it does not
comprehend, but only dimly suspects.