Hi All
I read over Unit 5 and on the top of page 40 Jack poses some provocative questions regarding our relationship and knowledge of time. The one question that struck a chord for me was, “Do you experience time at all?” When I first read it, my immediate reaction was “Of course I do.” But another sentence suggested that perhaps we do not, that what we take as a direct experience of time is nothing more than our post-facto conclusions, or our conceptual overlays on to experience.
As I reflected on this simple question, I became aware that my reliance on a past-present-future nexus is central to my ordinary relationship to time. That is, what I usually take to be time, is really more a mental construction that places me in a temporal context defined by past memories and future anticipations/avoidances. So, my next initial response to Jack’s question, was, “I am not so sure I know time.”
Then, I questioned, well, if the ordinary conception of time as I usually think (always structuring my experience in terms of past, present and future) is not Time, then how do I know if I know Time? What came to me then were associations. Well, maybe then Time is just the feeling of change, more acute awareness of change, transitoriness, impermanence. This seemed a little closer. But, then that posed some problems. If TIME is impermanence, then how to enjoy it if every moment is fleeting? That seemed paradoxical or contradictory to me. But that is what Jack is alluding that this Unit attempts to expose.
I am usually painfully aware when I feel that I am wasting time, or letting it pass in a way that I regret–like not being fully engaged with what I am doing, or, being divided, like part of me intends to do a task, but another part of me resists–and then I do feel that time is somehow external force or oppressive. So these are some interesting themes in my life that I want to look at more deeply through this and future Units on Time.
Ron
