When is now?

One side effect of my job is that I have to deal with longer timelines. Many projects have to be calculated like this: “If we start it in the Fall 11, it will take us to the next curriculum approval cycle in Spring 12, which means we’d start phasing in the new program in Fall 12, and first graduates will complete in Spring 16.” If you keep thinking in such terms, the reality of now is easily forgotten. I was sure, for example, for a few minutes, that we are in 2010, only to be reminded this is 2011. Have you done this? We also start forgetting how old we are, because years become increasingly short, and simply not as good and long as the old kinds of years. When you are six, a year is an eternity. What a torture to wait for two months for a summer vacation. Then waiting becomes a luxury; things come our way much faster than expected. Oh, really, it is already April 15? Oh, shoot, I am missing a deadline. This may be age-related, too, but when I am losing my mind, my instinct is to make a theory out of it. Denial is a wonderful thing.

This is not just about perception of time. It fascinates me to see that the now is just a construction of our minds. The present is nothing but a convention, an agreement; it is adherence to an arbitrary concept of time. We learned to use certain astronomical features of our world to create a particular theory of time, consisting of a sequence of consequent simultaneities. It is one but one of many possible theories. For an ascetic, for example, the subjective time is much more important than the calendar time, because he or she does not need to meet other people, so times do not need to be synchronized. This is what the present is: a device to synchronize individual timelines. As with any other great inventions, the invention of simultaneity both gives us much and takes something away. We can get along and cooperate, but we completely ruin our inner subjective time. We act before we are ready, and grow up before we mature; we limit our freedom to slow down or fast-forward time.  We become complete prisoners of the linear time. And when we forget when is now, we are either losing our minds, or are returning momentarily to the primordial bliss that had to point in time. I want to skip to June 15 now.