Also About Being on Time

[kokopelle]

Some clarification points... I don't wear a watch and have not for the past twenty years. I watched "time-shifted" entertainment on my Tivo, so I am not tied to being in front of the tube at time X to watch show Y. Deep down I am not a time tyrant.

I acknowledge that there are times when time is not measured (Pow-wows, Gatherings) and this is a blessing. It is nice to get away for the weekend/week and just be with people who share a common interest. In my mind this makes those events that are scheduled that much more important and deserving of respect for those who attend. I am also scarred from past experience. I very much remember a public ritual that was supposed to start at sundown. Did it? No. Instead we found ourselves at the top of a wind swept hill, in close to freezing temperatures, at nearly midnight. The time and temperature made it very difficult (for me) to be observant of the purpose of the ritual. Should it have been canceled because thing X or Y happened, postponing the starting time? Perhaps not, but to push through the event in those conditions was perhaps the best choice. Walk the talk. Do your thing when you say you will or be flexible in respect for others.

(here's hoping I can look in my own mirror!)

Comments

[chimerae.livejournal.com]

Timing is like lieing in our culture in that it's one of those really INTERESTING fulcrums that falls into cultural and personal shadow communications. It's a "tell" if you know what you're watching and have the patience and discipline to wait for conclusions.

One of the big things that happens culturally is that "on time" and late are still accepted dominance signals in our culture. People who are important are permitted, and sometimes even expected to be late since they are "so busy" and in a feudal or an employment circumstance there's a covert presumption that the underling's time is actually the province of the "boss" to expend at their pleasure. This is old (social) technology since the successful "boss" managages that ephemeral time resource with great care. But since it's cultural and rolls back through history you have lots of people who have internalized "late" as power trip and don't even have a clue. Typically these folks have a lot of self-harm through their lives because of this passive aggressive late.

Then there's a problem with hardworking optomists who habitually overstack their schedules. They're often great people and great workers -- the type who want to wash one more dish, finish that set of code, call two more clients before calling it a day. They typically (foolishly) asses the amount of time things take with great optomism and then leave no time for moving between tasks. These folks are typically embarrassed and honestly apologetic for their lateness if their hardworking optomism is the only thing. Unfortunately, this sometimes coexists with the time as power crowd.

There's lots more issues, but the last of the common "tells" that needs mentioning is that different types of minds assess and experience time differently. I actually never thought to ask, but I'll bet the Meyer's Briggs profiles predict time management issues.

Regardless, I think this is a management issue and synching up everybodys clocks and schedules is central to management actually adding value

Have you asked your own manager about this issue, acknowledging your issues (irritation) but mostly openly curious about WTF is up with this in your otherwise excellent company?

[chimerae.livejournal.com]

Different cultures have different time experiences.

"Indian time" however NPC the term is a legit cultural delta except that it's been co-opted by subsets of our culture as an excuse for power and accountability games. It's like the people who tell everyone they are "creatives" when they're really just self-referential twits with a veneer of aesthetic sensibility.

An awareness of the time subsets in our culture reveals how we have boxed ourself in an awareness ghetto. A working company is necessarily an awarness ghetto, but it's good to get your ghetto tuned to the optimum environment for the outcomes you're after.

In this very rural environment, time norms are very different. Most norms are very different. You don't pick up the phone and call someone because they may be working stock or doing something where the phone is inappropriate. Instead, you pay attention to the cultural time/space windows and get yourself there to minimize disruption.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

BIG BIG BIG CLARIFICATION HERE... sorry about the yelling, but I did not realize I was presenting the information in this way. It was my Cherokee teacher who used the words "Indian time". I would not, and do not, use this term myself. I should have sited the source in the blog. My apologies to anybody who was offended. I've not heard anybody outside of the NA community use this time. Likewise, it is my pagan friends who use the term "pagan standard time".

How is that for a PC reaction? Just wanted to address my own blogging unawareness.

[chimerae.livejournal.com]

I wasn't criticizing you, just cringed when I wrote it myself because people around me are hypervigilant about that sort of thing.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

Power does breed strange behaviors. Your analysis of the "abuse" of time reminds me of Carolyn Myss talking about how the rich/powerful are allowed mistresses/boy toys while it is "wrong" for the lesser people to indulge in similar interests.

I find my workplace to be pretty sane when it comes to meeting times. I was making comments about another location. We local people have chit-chatted about the corporate (other location) behavior, and it is odd to see the disyncronized behavior. I will say that this behavior is less apparent in teleconferenced calls, but still the 5 to 10 minutes late turns into 1 to 2 minutes late. Busy busy? Perhaps yes. Let's go with that theory for now as I do work for an excellent company.

Finally, from Celestial Timings this month

[chimerae.livejournal.com]

Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment. The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to chronological or sequential time, and kairos signifies a time in between, a moment of undetermined duration in which something special happens. While chronos is quantitative, kairos has a qualitative nature. http://www.reference.com/browse/Kairos

Chronos in Greek mythology, was depicted in Greco-Roman mosaics as a man turning the Zodiac Wheel, sometimes referred to as Aeon or Eternal Time. In pre-Socratic philosophical works Chronos is said to be the personification of Time. His name actually means "time," and is alternatively spelled Khronos (transliteration of the Greek) or Chronus (Latin version). http://www.reference.com/browse/chronos

Sacred Time…
Embracing the sacred nature of Time can shift our understanding and experience. Time has many multiple layers and dimensions; some are more familiar than others. There are “Time out of Time” experiences that do not fit into what we consider ordinary reality where Time can stand still, elongating in mysterious ways or time moves more quickly than usual. Most of us are familiar with ordinary Time measured by a clock. There is the Time of day or night, the week, the month the year. The time when we work, play, socialize, learn, eat, rest etc. There is also where we are on the timeline of our life whether young or old or somewhere in-between. This kind of Time also measures the beginning, middle and end of events.

Time seemingly moves in a linear fashion. We experience our lives from the perspective of past, present and future orientations of Time. Some say the only Time is NOW, however, we do have memories of the past and visions of the future. The Greeks referred to this more linear experience of Time as Chronos the root word for chronology or a sequential arrangement of events sometime referred to as a Timeline or a chronicle. This is connected to what we call clock time and that has become our primary experience of time as our culture has have moved away from a more sacred relationship to Time.

Kairos was another word the Greeks used to describe an experience of Time. Kairos time is sacred time or time that is fluid, flowing, in the moment, in the creative process. It refers to an experience that takes us outside of clock time, where we are fully absorbed in the moment and no longer aware of the passing of time. It is eternal and outside the experience of past and future. In kairos time there are no questions, it is a perfect sacred eternal moment beyond the limits of ordinary reality. There are moments when we spontaneously slip into Kairos time often we are not expecting it, or we can connect with sacred time through ceremony, meditation, dance, chanting, journeying, or any creative pursuit that expands or suspends our experience of the passing of chronos time.

It seems that we are now, more than ever in recent memory, experiencing a greater merging between Chronos and Kairos time. Chronos has greatly speeded up. It seems to be moving faster and faster as the days go by. This means many are finding it essential to find ways to somehow suspend the experience of time from the chronos perspective and to engage kairos or sacred time where all the timelines are converging and transforming into a new dimensional reality beyond anything previously experienced here on Earth. Much of this is reflected by the multitude of rare and powerful planetary alignments that remind us we are NOT in an ordinary Time.