We are taught in this culture of cogs and clutches that time is a line. Finite, ever-shortening, something we spend, something that runs out. We are guided by speediness and goaded by the illusion of perpetual urgency.
But the supposed limits of time are only barriers if we perceive ourselves as discrete individuals within an isolating universe.
If you’ve ever prayed for a loved one to make it through a night, lost yourself in play, or even just binge-watched an engrossing show, you have experienced the relative nature of time.
How might our enjoyment of life expand if we shift our perspective of time?
Time as Currency
Like so many other near-truths, the idea “time is money” is pervasive for a reason. Time can serve as a fluid medium of change and exchange, denoting value and enabling flow. Space and time are so deeply interrelated that we cannot experience one without the other. Time is the current that enables movement across space.
Most people must trade time to get basic needs met, and to have time that is not parceled out far in advance is a form of abundance. What we choose to offer time to becomes the substance of our lives. Devoting time to people can turn them into friends, and giving time to practices can turn them into skills.
But when our perspective narrows into a furrow where all of our time must be productive, where we require tangible, quantifiable results of the time we have spent, then we can get lost. If we are always focused on the artifacts rather than the essence of experience we can miss our lives, distracted by constantly racing to get the next thing done.
This addiction to speed and production is a core underpinning of both our off-the-charts collective stress and the climate crisis. The faster we insist on having things done and having things, the more reckless we are with personal and environmental health.
But we could choose a relationship with time that honors its relativity. That honors time as a malleable mirror of dynamism. Where we ride the currents of time like turtles on ocean streams. From Afrofuturist novelists who insist there are Black people in the future to gardeners who envision the summer’s bounty while planting tiny seeds in windows trays, we can travel through time with our imaginations. Creativity and presence are our portals to timelessness.
Time as Art
Without death, there is no life. Death gives us cycle, transformation, a taste of completion. Banks to our flowing rivers.
Liquid color needs an object to hold it, where paint can cure and become still and tell a story of form and value, hue and composition. Time is the canvas upon which our lives are created, where we can tell stories of growth and loss, flowering and decay.
If we think of time only as a finite and linear resource, our stories remain monotone and industrial, fixated on efficiency and profit. But if we remember that time, like every other force of life, is cyclical and interpenetrative, we might have a chance of touching beauty.
We stretch time through curiosity and playfulness. If we trust our heads around enough, if we slow down enough, we might widen the cracks enough to make portals to something more.
A couple years ago when I was struggling to complete a painting commission, a wise friend remarked how the time it takes to create a work of art is part of the piece. Time enables evolution, and it is the invisible ingredient that enriches everything.
Timefulness
In an age where everything seems to be moving too fast, perhaps we can slow down. Not to try to force anything to stop, but to remember how to savor. To take the long way, whether that’s refraining from using dubious ai to speed up a project or enjoying the scenic route home. Let your hands and patience enliven what you make and what you see.
Embracing paradox is one of our greatest superpowers. When we desperately want something done quickly, the urgency can undermine the quality of our actions and ultimately sabotage the project. Or even if we do complete it without mistakes, the stress of rushing might undercut our enjoyment. Either way, staring at the clock causes interference.
But if we can practice deep presence, by losing the track of time we might open a space beyond tracts and boxes. In ancient Greece this was understood as kairos, qualitative time, ripeness, the balance of chronos, quantitative or linear time. The key is not to try to squeeze as much into a day as we can, but to look for ripe moments for things. To be so deeply where and when we are that we are also everywhere and everywhen.
This is not only accessible to people who create their own schedules. Even obligatory tasks can offer doorways to timelessness. It’s not the what, it’s the how. How do you approach the many little rituals that await you every day? Can you greet the mundane as a potential portal to the mysterious?
If we can remember ourselves as simply nodes within a vast web, ever spiraling with each other through various permutations of time and space, we might find time to enjoy the ride. Can we open our eyes to the beauty within and around us, and how full, how overflowing with life every moment of time is?
May we learn how to bend our perception into the shape of a spiral. May we live in exultant expression of our time as art.