Thoughts In The Key Of N

Hello Rob,

I read an article today about an Amazonian tribe that has recently been found, who have no concept of time. This intrigued me, as it means that along with having no concept of having an age, but without the constraint of late equals “free”, they would also not have the speedy delivery of pizzas that we enjoy.

Depending on whether Domino’s delivers to the Amazon, this point may be moot. They don’t deliver to parts of Pascoe Vale, so who can determine where they draw their boundaries? Dough-trading bastards.

This got me thinking about a lot of things, and coffee. But it also made me think about how overly dictated our society is by times and dates, and coffee. If someone ever scoffs at the notion of obsessive compulsive behaviour, ask them how many months from Christmas. Then get them to figure out how many Saturdays before Christmas. If they can answer either of these questions, then they are a hypocrite – throughout our entire lives, a part of our brain is constantly keeping time on events and progress of time.

We spend so much of our time organising our lives around these imaginary milestones and markers, that we’ve lost track of just how fictitious the entire concept is. Our culture is now based around this arbitrary dissection of time, to which we all rigidly adhere, to the point that we chastise others who do not feel like conforming to this transparent system quite as strongly as we may. Just for a moment, imagine that the only thing you were interested in, schedule-wise, was what was going to happen between you waking, and sleeping again today.

This world you are now imagining, will have me in it – I am egocentric enough to think that I’ve got your attention, and so will be present. This me, and this you, will not wear watches, or talk about “next week”. Our locked iPhones will have a blank screen devoid of numbers. We will not stop our activities at a particular point because we have stated we would begin something else at moment marked by a number. We will do what’s important, and we will focus on what matters. Namely, coffee.

I AM IN YOUR HEAD.

What a different world that would be! So many more things would happen as they should, because you are now completely invested in the NOW. You aren’t going to put something out of mind for two weeks because the service provider tells you thats when they want it. Parties would occur the same day that the mood struck, we would organise and do things so much faster than we do now. Each day would be active, and full of experiences and productivity, if only because your entire brain and existence was living in the moment and not scattered over time and space, even if only on paper.

Project Managers would become extinct. Microsoft Outlook would be a waste of 1’s and 0’s. Swatch would have a company-wide hissy fit, and then start making trendy swiss cars.

We keep trying to find time for coffee. Maybe instead we should just let coffee happen, and leave the time for another day.

(that last bit made my brain scream)

regards,

nick

~ by nick on May 25, 2011.

Posted in Correspondence