How would my life be without time concept?

Completed writing on 17 October 2024

Reflection from Art of Hosting Week on 06th October

I've been thinking about the concept of time and its necessity for the existence and development of human beings. Even when I engaged in an entire fulfilling week, in the Community Cirlce Open space, we were asked:

“what have I been wrestling with?”

My answer: the concept of time.

I would not say a facilitating or actively participating in the week or being at the present or adapting to cold weather. Yes all of these were sometimes out of my comfort zone but I managed to conquer them all because they helped me grow stronger and they touched my heart.

At the World Cafe activity, responding to the question what complexities we are experiencing in the living world? I said it's the complexity of time. Time is indefinite but also finite. In the world of uncertainty, we have to prepare ourselves for the unexpected but we need to stay present to be aware and respect the people around us. 

How can we balance looking forward to the future, meanwhile being the best self in the present moment? 

In terms of our identity shaped by the cultural or religious context the concept of time varies. Importance may lie in the present, the past or the future. There is no clear line of boundaries marking those periods.

Towards the end of the week, I felt drained of energy perhaps caused by a Restless week. We engaged in an intensive week ranging from service hours of cleaning, cooking, and gardening, to community meetings, initiative forum planning, creative session, movement class, and a lovely afternoon movement and singing session by Kefas. I also attended a light observing session to see how natural light changes in relation to indoor lighting. Three other urgent tasks we had to do were to meet up with our internship organizations; applying for visa to India; and fundraising planning for our internship! 

a magical time to see how MANY colors were there as time passed by

I wish the whole week could be spread into two weeks to have time to digest and practice; because I love every single activity of the week and I wish to have more time for everything! We could range the urgency level of every activity and select the ones that must be done within the week. Besides, I prioritized the cognitive load of learners; the relevance of the learning activity to our learning goals; and the availability of our contributors. Time plays a big role in structuring all of these components. 

For example, priority may revolve around Art of Hosting contributors since they are only available for one week. Also, the nature of AoF goes with preparation in order to host which takes time. Then we also need time to debrief about what happened and what could we learn. We utilized meal time to discuss many plans with the intention to be “time-efficient”. To me, eating is a time that I like to be quiet and focus on my food and just feel the taste and let my mind slow down. It’s how I practice mindfulness. So, the intensive schedule has lessoned my focus on the practice. That’s what I meant about “time”, if we were to follow the rhythm of body and mind, I would not attend to multitasking. 

In fact, I had to multitask, and I handled them smoothly. Especially, I could spend the whole week designing activities to host! For self-directed learning nature, we are trusted to be able to manage our time and take responsibility for our choice. 

It was the first time I skipped dinner, to be outside of the big group,  just to breathe. I went on a hike and picnic with my lovely friends, Bella, Mayu and Seoyeon.

We adventured to a new area and cooked our own food. My soul was pampered in moments of walking through the trees, finding a rocky space in our vague memory of its location. We ended up at a tranquil grass area, just in time to sip sunset and enjoy the best food. I felt like a kid completing trusting my friend to navigate our way back amidst dusk. 

On other hand, I love the singing & movement with Kefas. I have no memories of the lyrics but I would remember the feeling of synchronicity of myself and others through our voice and our movement. I want to practice the art of expressing ourselves through voice and body with him so much more! 

I also love doing woodwork with Per and another movement class with Peter. These spaces allowed me to practice mindfulness and creative expression.

The instructors just briefly described and demonstrated, and we practiced by ourselves. That’s what I love about adult learning. We took ownership of our learning process. I felt relaxed and light in the movement of my hands and my body. 

In that Community Circle on Friday afternoon. So the answer to the open space question, what I am wrestling with is

Can I live in a world where time doesn't exist?

Could we figure a way where we could balance chaos and order with time?

We move on, or we live our life based on observing the changes in nature and the changes in our body. In a way, we have a clear connection to our physical and emotional needs which also act as a compass for us to decide what to do, where to be or just be. With that connection, it's also interdependent on our relationship with the natural elements such as the movement of the sun stars moon wind light animals plants. Can we just do that the way that people in the Stone Age did? Then I will not have to look at my watch and estimate the time of the duration of activities. I would not have to feel under pressure of interrupting what I need versus what I have to do or the pressure of being in a hurry to perform some task. 

Time is often a huge issue at work and it's also tied as a working principle such as being “on time” or “time is a shared resource”. Time defines the working hours that employees explicitly show up in the work. The amount of working hours still reflects the quality of the productivity of the work. The speed of time even shows a positive productive work performance while the reality might be that employees suffer from competition and prioritizing work over what's important to them purposefully. The industrialized world has emphasized time so much that humans have to sacrifice living moments to be with their loved ones or to adventure in their freedom for work. 

I wish that the concept of time, minutes, hour, schedule, will become more fluid, if not disappear HAHA. The term present past and future may still remain because those concepts collect something called memor and dream.  We may not need specific milestones to name such moments. When we do not count, we don't have to chase after numbers. In sports competitions, even a millisecond could make people fight hard because that concept of milliseconds is heavy in a society that values success over failure.

I would like to have the power to design my own life where I would sense my body clock, my emotional clock while cultivating any kind of values that I want such as love, joy, compassion, curiosity, collaboration, commitment and courage. 

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