Preoccupation

Being preoccupied is a regrettable habit of mine. It is something I fall into in my weaker moments.

But I also realize it is a defense mechanism. I retreat into my inner world. It is a refuge from failure, judgment, dismissal – hurt, generally, from people. Ideas are safe.

So is contempt. And jadedness. Things not to cultivate.

Turning Back The Time

(Written with reference to Chapter 2 of Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson. This is how I apprehended Anderson’s apprehensions.)

Anderson contends that the way we understand time is not necessarily how humanity throughout history (and especially not pre-Industrial, or pre-printing press, humanity) has always understood time.

In referring to time as we understand it, he uses the phrase ‘Homogenous, empty time’. ‘Homogenous’ indicates that time is:

1. Unitary: precisely measured/consistent standards are maintained, therefore it is also
2. Simultaneous: it applies similarly across observable space.

‘Empty’ implies that time:
1. Is decoupled from routine.
2. Has a contingent rather than an inherent value.

The idea of simultaneity is central to Anderson’s argument. His basic contention is that our understanding of ‘simultaneity’ is radically different from how a pre-Industrial Revolution (or pre-printing press), rural agriculturalist might understand simultaneity.

Time as apprehended by our hypothetical pre-Industrial rural agriculturalist is bound by the immutability of routine (as compared with ‘empty’). The most common routines would have to do with agriculture, which is necessary for subsistence, and religion, which was believed to be such. Time would not run separately from these routines as much as it would have been marked by these things. For imaginings beyond his local experience, he had the conception of a God who transcends the bounds of his time and space.

What led to the decoupling of the passage of time from routine was technology that allowed its passage to be precisely tracked. It was consistently adopted because of technological development and economic forces which made relevant a conception of the simultaneity of time across long distances.

I. Precision & Consistency

Prior to the development of reliable mechanical clocks, timekeeping was an imprecise business. (Lunar or other systems could still be very accurate, but its precision tended to limited to the day.) Time was most readily apprehended in the movement of the sun in the sky, the phases of the moon and the passing of seasons. (Astrologers could also observe patterns of movement of the stars in relation to other celestial bodies and attempt to apprehend the passage of time in that way.) Larger communities might develop mechanisms for coordinating things like communal prayer, economic administration or military activity. However, timekeeping would remain imprecise and largely inconsistent between geographically removed communities.

With the advent of reasonably reliable mechanical clocks and watches, things like clocktowers might become a chronological reference in a town or city. Timekeeping might be consistent within these large communities, or even among a few large communities. In such a case we see a much improved level of precision, as well as some cases of consistency.

I recall an account of one of the effects of the advent of railways in America. Prior to their spread, mechanical watches were already quite common among those who could afford them. However, a man set his watch to his own preference and convenience. Someone’s watch could say two o’clock, and his neighbour might have his watch read four o’clock. The point was that there was no standard time (or at least no Time accepted as Standard). In this case, we have time that is precise, but not necessarily even locally consistent.

This changed with the advent of the railway, because railways did have standard times. These were important because trains needed to meet schedules: if it leaves a station in one part of the country at a certain time, there is an economic incentive to work towards being able to predict its arrival at another station distantly removed, so that, for example, it is possible to arrange for the workers required to load/unload the train of its freight to be present, or, for that matter, to be able to predict and obtain the quantity of fuel needed for the train to make its return journey. Railway time eventually became the reference for standard time, because it was consistent across space.

That time is standard, i.e. it is the same time in this place as well as some place 50 miles north, is something we take as a given, and it informs our idea of simultaneity: the term ‘space-time’ is most probably a familiar one, and when Anderson refers to ‘transverse’ or ‘horizontal’ time, it basically refers to a conception of simultaneity as two events happening in different points in space but at the same point in time.

space
|
|-_  _-A
|  --
|
|   _--B
|_--
|
|------------- time

II. Contingent Value & Decoupling

We are bound by time and space, i.e. we can escape neither. Furthermore, space is time in the sense that any movement in space is accompanied by a movement in time, because it is not yet possible to time-travel or exist in two places at once.

Insofar as our physical bodies require sustenance, and most of us are not directly engaged in agriculture and buy food with currency, something else we are bound by is money. In a sense, time is money, because time is space, and space is money too. With the railway in mind, the main cost of freight is in fuel, and fuel cost is a function of distance travelled, i.e. space. The value of time is therefore contingent on economic factors, like the price of fuel, demand for the good transported, etc.

However, this was not always the case. Such theoretical valuations are useful only because they approximate reality, and that reality is necessarily technologically advanced enough to allow for long-distance travel and precise and consistent timekeeping. (For example, in Paul Krugman’s ‘Theory of Interstellar Trade’, he has to assume the development of sufficiently sophisticated futures markets in his analysis of trade involving close-to-lightspeed travel, where the apparent passage of time is slower for the ship captain; this is a special and, the author avows, not a general case of relativism in academia.) But what if it wasn’t?

In a situation where time is both imprecise and inconsistent, its value cannot be contingent on wider economic factors (or at least not in the same way that we understand ‘economic factors’ in the context of industrial society). The chronological units by which one may be a function of the other are not defined, and would in any case be irrelevant, without the technology for long-distance overland freight. Instead, the value of time would be tied intimately to the routines of the individual and his household, and his local community. These routines would either be relevant in sustaining agriculture (which is necessary for life) or they would be of a religious nature (they were believed to be necessary for life).

The individual’s conception of simultaneity would also be limited to his immediately perceivable reality. Although he would surely be able to conceive of how someone else on his field or on a neighbouring field might be working at the same time he is working, that conception is bound by his local and present experience in a way that ours is not. The bounds of space are defined by how far he can travel on foot or by horse with a load of provisions for the journey, and the cost of such an undertaking relative to staying put (it would be prohibitive). What remains most real is the local present.

In this situation, we see that time is tied to the local present in a way that the post-Industrial conception of time (space-time) is not. Time in its post-Industrial conception is decoupled from the routine of agricultural activity and the local present and attains a status as an abstractly apprehensible parameter in itself by virtue of it being standardized, i.e. precise and consistent. In that sense, it is ‘empty’, as compared to time bound by routine in accordance with the natural rhythms of the days, months and seasons. Time in the latter situation has a pre-defined occupation.

Thus far we have been describing the small-ness of our hypothetical pre-Industrial rural agricultarist’s conception of the world as compared to ours, but we would be in error to assume that it follows that his imaginations were comparatively limited; in some ways he lived in a world that was vastly larger, for that which was unreachable or rarely reached was filled with his imaginings. The most comprehensive (all-encompassing), catholic (related in some manner to all) and coherent (Alpha and Omega) of these was God. In imagining his relation to that vastly larger world, he could imagine it in terms of his communion with (or, perhaps, the ability of his soul to apprehend the substance of) God.

The Summer

What a long time it’s been since I last wrote here! Much has happened and more is going on, but this is the rare moment in which I find myself both at sufficient remove from present pursuits and with mind enough to reflect.

The only excuse I can offer is that in the past few months, it’s so often felt like everything was up in the air, and I could barely keep pace, much less get perspective. In that time, I stopped work, moved out from home and into college, prepared to restart school life, had my first classes and fell in love. Sometime in the middle of that I lost my phone; that inconvenience proved particularly troublesome.

Generally, though, I’ve been having so much to thank God for every day. In the course of things, there were many turns I did not know to expect, but I find I am in a better place than I struck for.

The college applications process didn’t go at all as I would have preferred, and at the end of all waiting periods, I had one solid offer. I had adjusted my expectations accordingly during the waiting period, and when the waiting was conclusively over, I was mostly grateful to be able to begin preparing for my next stage of life in earnest. The strange thing was, ‘conclusive’ wasn’t what I thought it was, and a last-minute offer (from an institution from which I had earlier received a rejection) plunged me into my orientation programme before I even had time to rearrange my schedule.

The stress from all the loose ends I’d been forced to leave untied was at the back of my mind during my orientation, and I did not expect to come out of it as happy as I was: but I was surprised. The new campus, the prospect of the freedom to be fully engaged in study and college life, the dedication of the leaders to make a good vision become reality: I had not expected to find this, and yet I was placed in it.

Subsequently, I tied up whatever loose ends I could, moved into college and went for my first classes. (I hope you made the leap.) My first class in years is one I’ll remember for a long time to come, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my semester so far. God’s work in the most important relationships in my life has been indispensable to the state I’ve been enjoying, and I continue to hold Him at His promise (lest I forget, or faith falters).

In the past coupla weeks I’ve pretty much settled into this stage of my life, and my thoughts are turning outward; yet another thing I’ve been doing recently is seeing a number of my friends off at the airport as they begin their outward journeys. In the northern hemisphere it is autumn, but where I am in life feels more like summer: so I should labour, not for myself, but with the hope of the increase.

I’ve barely managed to describe the content of my life in the past few months, and I have, for practical purposes, been looking at it as if through the wrong end of a telescope. I have fixed the view narrowly on myself at the expense of the people in my life, but (and here I beg your pardon) suffice it to say that I’ve had the fortune of being able to rely on the unremitting support and generosity of friends in situations of need.

Yet it would be impossible to live as though all is sweet, and here I remember the things that have soured, and the bitter tastes left behind.

Yirgacheffe

My sister brought me 2 kilograms of coffee from Vietnam, and while I was happy for it, it did take quite a while to get through. And so, this package of Ethiopia Yirgacheffe was properly waited for:

Into the jar,

Then into the grinder…

And out again:

Then it’s time to bring out the AeroPress:

 

And finally:

And before I partake, I look into the black.

Fool’s Hope

I initially titled this post ‘Futility’, but 1 Corinthians 13 came to mind.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

I quote verses 4-8 (BibleGateway page) from the beautiful ESV translation.

I owe the decision for the title to v. 8, the first line of its paragraph.

Light Through A Window

‘Ours is a well-lit city.’

I’ve thought these words often; I think them again as I fold my arms tighter in the compressor-cooled air of the last bus for the night. The upper deck is, unsurprisingly, empty – and colder for it. Outside the window, the lights are orange, and the uniform curve in the neck of each Lycorpole street-lamp is something I’d like to think I can be counted on to recognize. It is a notion of home that is as perfect and elemental as any I’ve ever dreamt of, and yet, also, I think, this notion of home is something I’ve grown into rather than away from.

It was on these orange city streets that I used to run in the night-time, an escape at an age when I had too many thoughts and not enough privacy. There were other nights, some of my happiest being those I spent in search of supper after playing a concert, when we would stroll around Holland Village or City Hall, all the while chatting happily or tiredly while the decision made itself. More recently, these were the streets I missed when, in barracks on a darker, off-shore island, I’d dream of Singapore city and how I’d spend my first soldier’s wage.

‘Ours is a well-lit city,’ I think, as my night bus wends its way back home through the mostly empty but still illuminated streets. Behind the window, in cold air and warm light, it is easy to dream.

A Fault Of The Common Sort

Pride may be a universal human fault in that we, finite beings all, can’t help but fear for our selves and our egos. We protect our selves either aggressively or by building fences; we advance ourselves by stepping over other peoples’ egos; we wager ourselves on promises or oaths because we feel otherwise powerless to pull anyone along; we throw in our lots with causes or culture in a quest to transcend; we maintain a state of perpetual self-effacement and so leave nothing to be grasped and hence nothing vulnerable; we do many other things.

My fault is pride of the common sort: I rebel against what I perceive as sufferance. The worst slights are well-intentioned and oblivious.

Newton’s Laws

I. Accelerate

Engines run: there is work done
When we travel. I run
Across the platform. Doors
Are closing: . . . . . . .

So we progress. There is work done,
Or so I reckon; there is work done
When we travel. So we progress

And we regress. I run
Across the platform, an engine running
Back. Please mind
__ the gap.

II. Idle

‘Your reckoning is excellent. I -
Sum this up for me, will you?’
Very well: this is
_____________ the sum. This is
How engines run, and thoughts
Run parallel; how they travel! In a day
More than I could reckon. But this,

The sum
Of our trajectories: the sum
I reckon where I rest, where I rest;
They come to rest, here
On the shape
Of you.

See The World In Green And Blue

It's a beautiful day.

Testament

At the end of the weekend, I am filled with gratitude and wonder at the goodness and greatness of my God. It is love in its many ways and forms, love from every quarter, that He has made me to know in such concentrated succession over the past three days, and all of this amidst sadness, fear, tiredness and brokenness not only in myself but all around me. To be in this love is blessedness.

And to all friends, brothers and sisters in love, comrades, teachers and mentors who have yet to hear from me, I send my best regards. I keep up with some of you, and I haven’t with others, but to all I am equally in debt, and what I owe I would give if I had; but in the mean time, I’ll keep up where I can (I’ve fallen dangerously in arrears in the past few weeks), and trust that that which I leave unpaid will return to you many fold, because our God is good.