We are Living in Artificial Time

What if I told you that we are living in an artificial structure of time that is not supportive of human biology and that is why so many of us are anxious and sad?

Before your mind rushes to any conclusions, Imagine..

A time when our ancestors could look up at the milky way and read it like a map. They’d grab the closest mammoth tusk and carve in notches, recording patterns of stars like taking notes in a lecture. The sky wasn’t seen as just this pretty blue thing, it gave us directions.

In mankinds past, nothing that happened in nature was considered random or coincidence. That is why we were able to recieve directions in the first place, our minds were open to it. Time was not so managed, and seconds did not exist.

It was our ancestors relationship and observation of nature which allowed them to survive and in many ages, thrive. There was a deep understanding of cycles; in the moon, in the sun, in the trees, in the wind, in the waves and in the human. Our ancestors studied the natural world. They tracked our cosmos and oceans and recorded data based on patterns they perceived. In today's culture, I believe we call those people scientists?

The Ancients saw life as long stretching mountain range full of satisfying views and dimly lit valleys. All of it available for us to climb up and slide down and climb up again, cycles. One day you may wake up and decide to walk a few miles north and tackle a new mountain. Then halfway there, decide to lay under a tree and search for shapes in clouds instead. Time does not exist, only patterns do. That's why you know to walk home when the temperature slightly drops and the sky becomes warm and full of colors. Evidence the sun is beggining to set.

Somewhere along the line, humans conceptualized a more structured version of time and created 60 seconds. This modern invention of time, that we are all living in now, is linear. Linear time does not percieve life as being a series of highs, lows and plateaus. Instead, life is seen as one single mountain. One long, upward-hill race towards retirement. Only after a lifetime of hard-work are we able to exhale, relax and enjoy the view.

Linear time, the 60 seconds counting down in front of us every single day, comes with it an ideology that does not align with the human spirit.

A linear notion of time represents an idea that everyday and every year in life is an improvement upon the one earlier. With this view, life happens in a constant upward motion and true happiness is found the higher up you climb. So people have to work and fight to advance to the next level. This means constantly moving, growing and grinding.

We know from our ancestors, that this is not how nature works. As human beings made up of earth stuff, this is not how we work either.

Advancements in technology, especially the invention of the clock, has made time seem more legitimate and universal than it really is.

From 1870 to 1950, Time Zones all across the world were adjusted to adhere with train schedules and other industry demands. Linear time became globalized and clocks all around the world, standardized. To be able to carry out a new structuring of time means that time is not fixed or universal, like the speed of light for instance.

Linear time is artificial, and undeniably efficient.

In the past few hundred years, our technology has clearly become more and more advanced. However, my skepticism lies in the belief that efficiency is what advances the human spirit. I can think of something created to be efficient and fast-moving...

Machines.

When you think about what machines are made of, it makes sense that they thrive under the methodical structure of linear time. What about us, then? What we are comprised of is not hardware, but 70-80% water. Coincidentally, the same amount of water that exists on earth.

It does not make sense to me that as human beings with oceans inside of us, why we do not allow ourselves time to flow? We have been taught to sacrifice balance for efficiency. To work a minimum of 40 hours a week for, hopefully, one weekend off is not balance. We are taught prioritize industry demands over human needs. Risking our lives by speeding to work all so we can be considered on time.

As human beings, we have free-will. What no one talks about is the lack of free-time we have to access our will.

If in life we are to be constantly working to survive, when do we reflect? When do we play? When can we sit and reevaluate, or simply recover? Maybe that's how you spend your one or two days off in a week, recovering.

Why then, are we doing things for the majority of our lives that require us to spend the few days we have off mentally preparing for the next set of 40 hours?

The artificial countdown lurking over our heads keeps us distracted from the present moment, which is all we have. We are kept so busy that we do not have time to ask big questions about ourselves and the world. We are taught that this is all reality is, you work and then you die. Shouldn't the most advanced human civilization in the history of the world represent more than that?

Everything is moving so quickly around us that we are forced to keep up, to act more like machines. We are often left no choice but to adjust our natural state in order function in the way society requires us to. We do not honor our cycles, we disrupt them. We numb our feelings away because, well, who has the time?

When Autumn begins, we do not glue leaves back to trees forcing them to remain in bloom. We let them change colors and break off. We rake up our yards with acceptance and breathe in the air of our new season.

It is only fair that we do the same for ourselves.

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