Time

ABC TV's "Back to Nature" was on tonight, and they talked a little about non-linear time and how this is the default view of most (all?) Indigenous cultures in Australia.

It made me think about the phenomenon of "COVID Time" — is it August 2021, or the one thousandth day of March 2020? Hard to tell. Historians talk about "long decades" or "long centuries" when they want to conceptually bundle certain events or worldviews that slightly or less-slightly overlap a strict (and arbitrary) set of ten or a hundred years. We're definitely living the "long 2020".

But maybe "COVID Time" is actually a positive, rather than the negative it's generally perceived as. Maybe part of what's happening here isn't just that every day is Groundhog Day, as we move from our beds to our home studies if we're lucky, or to our dining or kitchen tables if we're less lucky. Maybe freeing ourselves of the routine of commutes and take away sandwiches and talking in meeting rooms and writing up plans on whiteboards has also opened our minds to how time can work differently. Maybe COVID is allowing us to connect to Everywhen.

I've written before about becoming a Noticer since COVID. This is mostly due to being thrown out of my routine, yet living in the same place. I develop a new routine, and then get thrown out of that. I notice things because my timing is off, things are new: to me. But it has also made me notice the seasons changing, and tapping in to that old and slow cyle of time, thinking about how long it's been since the first wattle bloomed and the first birds raised their new chicks.

Today I also read an interesting but flawed article about why humans have such difficulty understanding climate change. I say humans, but I really think it's "Modern humans" with a capital M. Others might say "Western", or even "White", though I personally think those are problematic terms especially in this context. Anyway, I've enjoyed Emmett FitzGerald's stories on 99% Invisible but she has some pretty White ideas about time:

all of human civilization has taken place during the Holocene, a 11,700-year interglacial period in which Earth’s climate has been remarkably consistent and remarkably hospitable to life.

...Humans haven’t been around for any of that.

...every vegetable grown and eaten, has occurred during this short period.

The facts are wrong but the point still stands and is interesting to consider. Sophie Cunningham writes similar things in her book "City of Trees" — humans who can hope to live at absolute most around 100 years have difficulty thinking about trees that unmolested live on average several times that. The Holocene has been remarkably stable and whilst humans lived and prospered long before it, there is a hell of a lot of cultural memory and practice built on it. We need strong cultural practices and cultural memories to overcome this.

Anyway, maybe COVID Time is a way to reconnect to Deep Time, and Everywhen, and new ways of slowing down to speed up.

=> Back to Nature | The Stability Fantasy