The Compression Of Time
by Eileen McDargh
Some of us may recall slow dancing
in the 60s as the
Rolling Stones wailed out "Time is on my
side, yes it is. "
Not any more. We all can sing the chorus:
"There's too much to do
and too little time."
Individually and collectively, we've created a
commodity worthy of
the New York Stock Exchange: Time. We've given it all
the form and
substance of a product for manipulation. We spend it,
lose it, waste
it, and manage it. We're told to make time, use time,
take time, and,
if we've had a run-in with the law, we might even
"do" time.
It's the great equalizer, given in singular 24-
hour chunks by the
rising of the sun and the setting of the moon. No
amount of money can
buy it, no power can hold it, and no army can stop
it. And one day we
will all lift our eyes to the heavens and want the
one thing we can no
longer have: one minute more on this earth.
It is my contention that this relationship with
time in today's
Western culture began with the invention of time-
telling devices and
has been further influenced and in many ways ripped
asunder by the
speed of technological inventions and our response
and interplay with
such inventions. As Dr. Willem D. Hackmann posited in
this summer
session, "science is an indication of the
culture." How have we come
to this place in our culture where Time has been
compressed, altered,
and given capital-letter stature? How have inventions
altered our
expectations of what can be done in a given period of
time? What is
the current reality of this culture? And finally,
where lies societal,
corporate and personal responsibility in dealing with
this reality?
This paper looks at the following areas:
A brief overview of the
development of the clock
An overview of the influence
of the clock on society and science
The increasing speed of
inventions and the advent of the
computer
The impact technology and
our expectations of compressed time
The impact of compressed
time on humans
What are we to do about
it?
A brief overview of the development of the
clock
Calendars were the forerunner of clocks. Ancient
civilizations from
the Sumerians to the more "modern" Aztecs
found that celestial
patterns offered them a rationale for marking the
months, years and
seasons. How fitting that astronomy would later prove
to also be a
clear partner in the marriage of more intricate time-
telling and be
joined as a navigational necessity.
Resources indicate that 5000 to 6000 years ago
great civilizations
in the Middle East and North Africa initiated clock
making as opposed
to calendar making. With their attendant
bureaucracies and formal
religions, these cultures found a need to organize
their time more
efficiently. After the Sumerians, Egyptians were the
next to formally
divide their day into parts something like our hours.
Obelisks were
built as early as 3500 B.C. Their moving shadows
formed a kind of
sundial in the quest for more year-round accuracy.
Sundials evolved
from flat horizontal or vertical plates to more
elaborate forms.
1
Water clocks were among the earliest timekeepers
that didn't depend
on the observation of celestial bodies. One of the
oldest was found in
the tomb of Amenhotep I, buried around 1500 B.C.
Later named
clepsydras ("water thief" by the Greeks who
began using them about 325
B.C.), these were stone vessels with sloping sides
that allowed water
to drip at a nearly constant rate from a small hole
near the bottom. A
Greek astronomer, Andronikos, supervised the
construction of the Tower
of the Winds in Athens in the 1st century B.C. This
octagonal
structure showed scholars and marketplace shoppers
both sundials and
mechanical hour indicators. It featured a 24-hour
mechanized clepsydra
and indicators for the eight winds from which the
tower got its name,
and it displayed the seasons of the year and
astrological dates and
periods. Since a clock based on that flow can never
achieve excellent
accuracy, other inventions led the way. 2
In Europe during most of the Middle Ages (roughly
500 to 1500
A.D.), technological advancement was at a virtual
standstill. Sundial
styles evolved, but didn't move far from ancient
Egyptian principles.
During these times, simple sundials placed above
doorways were used to
identify midday and four "tides" of the
sunlit day.
Then, in the early-to-mid-14th century, large
mechanical clocks
began to appear in the towers of several large
Italian cities. We have
no evidence or record of the working models preceding
these public
clocks that were weight-driven and regulated by a
verge-and-folio
escapement. In 1656, Christian Huygens, a Dutch
scientist, made the
first pendulum clock, regulated by a mechanism with a
"natural" period
of oscillation. Although Galileo, sometimes credited
with inventing
the pendulum, studied its motion as early as 1582,
Galileo's design
for a clock was not built before his death.
Today's popular Swatch watch probably owes its
ancestry to Huygens
who in the mid 1600's developed the balance wheel and
spring assembly,
still found in some of today's wristwatches. This
improvement allowed
17th century watches to keep time to 10 minutes a
day. And in London
in 1671 William Clement began building clocks with
the new "anchor" or
"recoil" escapement, a substantial
improvement over the verge because
it interferes less with the motion of the pendulum.
In 1721 George
Graham improved the pendulum clock's accuracy to 1
second a day by
compensating for changes in the pendulum's length due
to temperature
variations. John Harrison, a carpenter and self-
taught clock-maker,
refined Graham's temperature compensation techniques
and added new
methods of reducing friction. By 1761 he had built a
marine
chronometer with a spring and balance wheel
escapement that won the
British government's 1714 prize (of over $2,000,000
in today's
currency) offered for a means of determining
longitude to within
one-half degree after a voyage to the West Indies. It
kept time on
board a rolling ship to about one-fifth of a second a
day, nearly as
well as a pendulum clock could do on land, and 10
times better than
required. 3
Over the next century, refinements led in 1889 to
Sigmund Riefler's
clock with a nearly free pendulum, which attained an
accuracy of a
hundredth of a second a day and became the standard
in many
astronomical observatories. One of the most famous,
the W. H. Shortt
clock, was demonstrated in 1921. The Shortt clock
almost immediately
replaced Riefler's clock as a supreme timekeeper in
many
observatories. This clock consists of two pendulums,
one a slave and
the other a master. The slave pendulum gives the
master pendulum the
gentle pushes needed to maintain its motion, and also
drives the
clock's hands. This allows the master pendulum to
remain free from
mechanical tasks that would disturb its regularity.
The Shortt clock was replaced as the standard by
quartz crystal
clocks in the 1930s and 1940s, improving timekeeping
performance far
beyond that of pendulum and balance-wheel
escapements. Quartz crystal
clocks were better because they had no gears or
escapements to disturb
their regular frequency. Even so, they still relied
on a mechanical
vibration whose frequency depended critically on the
crystal's size
and shape. Thus, no two crystals can be precisely
alike, with exactly
the same frequency. Such quartz clocks continue to
dominate the market
in numbers because their performance is excellent and
they are
inexpensive. But the timekeeping performance of
quartz clocks has been
substantially surpassed by atomic clocks. 4
Scientists had long realized that atoms (and
molecules) have
resonance; each chemical element and compound
absorbs and emits
electromagnetic radiation at its own characteristic
frequencies. These
resonances are inherently stable over time and space.
An atom of
hydrogen or cesium here today is exactly like one a
million years ago
or in another galaxy. Here was a potential
"pendulum" with a
reproducible rate that could form the basis for more
accurate clocks.
5
In 1957 NIST completed its first cesium atomic
beam device, and
soon after a second NIST unit was built for
comparison testing. By
1960 cesium standards had been refined enough to be
incorporated into
the official timekeeping system of NIST. In 1967 the
cesium atom's
natural frequency was formally recognized as the new
international
unit of time: the second was defined as exactly
9,192,631,770
oscillations or cycles of the cesium atom's resonant
frequency
replacing the old second that was defined in terms of
the earth's
motions. The second quickly became the physical
quantity most
accurately measured by scientists. The best primary
cesium standards
now keep time to about one-millionth of a second per
year.
6
An overview of the influence of the clock on
society and science
Once the clock moved from a sundial into a more
mechanistic and
therefore "controlled" environment, society
began to respond to the
presence of this instrument. This paper does not
explore the
relationship of a clock to an increased ability to
navigate the seas
with more precision, but rather how the clock has
become a way in
which, today, we navigate our lives.
The clock as a social symbol and lifestyle
organizer
The clock was invented to satisfy a human need for
measuring time.
"At the same time, the machine which had been
devised to satisfy
particular human needs created new ones. In the
Middle Ages, bells
were added, playing a prominent role in medieval
life. Everyone knew
his or her meaning: telling the hour, when to work,
when to play, and
when to pray. The clock bells marked the beginning
and end of fairs.
This addition brings clocks into a true status as a
determiner of
lifestyle patterns and becoming part of the social
structure. Man
began to time activities that, in the absence of
clocks, they never
thought about timing. People became very conscious of
time and in the
long run, punctuality became an obsession. Over time,
reference gave
way from 'the time of vespers' to the time of the
clock".
7
An invention now became part of language:
o'clock!
Soon after its appearance, the clock assumed a
status symbol. In
Europe, towns competed with one another in the
construction of lavish
clocks and many had elaborate workings and movements.
When the clock
became portable, it became the fashion for nobles to
have their faces
painted on the timepieces. From Rolex to Bugatti,
watches continue
their symbol for affluence.
The clock as an influence on literature
In Europe, where the clock became an essential
object of everyday
life, modes of thinking and expression were deeply
impacted. From the
Middle Ages onward, the clock has been given human
characteristics,
some of which are not pleasant. There are probably a
number of 21st
century sleepers who might identify with the words of
Welsh poet,
Dafydd, writing in the late 14th Century.
"A curse on its head and tong, its two
ropes and its wheel, its
weights, heavy balls, its yards and its hammer; Its
duck which thinks
it is day and its unquiet mills Uncivil clock like
the foolish tapping
of a tipsy cobbler .A blasphemy on its face... A dark
mill grinding the
night." 9
In the 16th and 17th century, the clock prompted
words of
imagination. The poet Froissant penned that a clock
was analogous to
the sensations and manners of a loving heart. The
clock as a
convention, an entity, or a metaphor abounds in
writing from
Shakespeare to modern titles such as A Clockwork
Orange.
The clock as an influence on philosophy
In the newly released book, The Greatest
Inventions of the Past
2000 Years, W. Dante Hilts, a physicist and
computer scientist
nominates the clock as the greatest invention because
he says it is
"the embodiment of objectivity (which) paved the
way for the rigor of
objective science. It converted time from a personal
experience into a
reality independent of perception. The mechanism gave
thinkers like
Descartes and Leibniz a metaphor for self-governed
operations of
natural law."10 Keppler asserted that the
universe is not similar to a
divine, living being but rather is like a clock and
Robert Boyle wrote
that the universe is a "great piece of
clockwork."
As a side note, Hilts served as the chief
scientist of Thinking
Machines Corporation where he designed and built one
of the fastest
computers in the world. He is currently co-chairing
the Long Now
Foundation which is building a clock designed to last
10,000 years!
The clock as an influence on trade and early
"globalization"
The mechanical clock served as the primary lever
in truly opening
the Far East for trade with Europe. Up until the
invention of the
mechanical clock, the Chinese had little interest in
things European,
while Europe longed for the spices, gunpowder, and
fabrics of the
East. Merchant ships, using money made in the
Americas, bought and
resold Japanese silver and copper to China, cotton
textiles to
Southeast Asia, and Persian rugs to India.
Lack of eastern demand for western products was a
serious problem
but even more alarming was the fact that Asian
manufacturers competed
successfully with European products in the European
markets. The
unequal trade balance represented in East Indian
silks and calicos
bears some resemblance to today's trade imbalance.
The standstill was broken when Jesuit
missionaries, headed by
Father Matteo Ricci brought a clock into the Macao
port in the late
1500s. Word of a "self-ringing bell" caught
the attention of the
Imperial Palace. That it could tell time was
incidental. Through the
18th century, this "self-ringing bell intrigued
the Emperor and
subsequent officials as a fascinating toy. 11
The increasing speed of inventions and the
advent of the
computer
A colleague of mine, futurist Dan Burrus, has
tracked the data
behind the prevailing experiential evidence that says
we are living in
a sped-up world. Burrus contends that inventions,
because of better
(and faster) media communication now come to public
attention and use
at a quicker pace. Consider the following table.
|
Speed of Invention |
|
Development |
Invention |
Production |
Time |
|
Fluorescent
Lighting |
1852 |
1934 |
82 yrs |
|
Radar |
1887 |
1933 |
46 yrs |
|
Ballpoint Pen |
1888 |
1938 |
50 yrs |
|
Zipper |
1891 |
1923 |
32 yrs |
|
Diesel Locomotive |
1895 |
1934 |
39 yrs |
|
Cellophane |
1900 |
1926 |
26 yrs |
|
Power Steering |
1900 |
1930 |
30 yrs |
|
Rockets |
1903 |
1935 |
32 yrs |
|
Helicopter |
1904 |
1936 |
32 yrs |
|
Television |
1907 |
1936 |
29 yrs |
|
Kodachrome |
1910 |
1935 |
25 yrs |
|
Transistor |
1940 |
1950 |
10 yrs |
But the fastest growth of all is the computer, and
specifically the
personal or desktop computer.
Computers in Use, 1985-2000
(In millions) |
|
Country |
1985 |
1988 |
1989 |
1991 |
1992 |
1993 |
1994 |
1995 |
2000 |
|
United States |
21.50 |
40.80 |
47.60 |
62.00 |
68.20 |
76.50 |
85.80 |
96.20 |
160.50 |
|
Japan |
2.10 |
5.10 |
6.40 |
9.20 |
10.80 |
12.60 |
14.90 |
18.30 |
46.80 |
|
Germany |
1.90 |
4.20 |
5.20 |
7.30 |
8.70 |
10.40 |
12.30 |
14.20 |
29.80 |
|
United Kingdom |
2.10 |
4.30 |
5.20 |
7.20 |
8.40 |
9.60 |
10.90 |
12.60 |
26.00 |
|
France |
1.30 |
3.10 |
4.00 |
5.70 |
6.50 |
7.50 |
8.60 |
10.00 |
21.80 |
|
Canada |
0.90 |
2.00 |
2.50 |
3.70 |
4.30 |
5.20 |
6.20 |
7.20 |
15.30 |
Source: Computer Industry Almanac Inc., Arlington
Heights, Ill.
What, you might ask, has this to do with the
clock? According to
Hilts, the computer, with its mechanistic playing out
of predetermined
roles is a direct descendant of the clock. 13
Per se, these facts may seem like historical
oddities. Their
meaning, however, acquires a new dimension when one
notices that
similar facts are quite common in the history of
technology and
machines. "Each new machine creates new needs,
besides satisfying
existing ones and breeds newer machines. The new
contrivances modify
and shape our lives and our thoughts; they affect the
arts and
philosophy, and they intrude ever into our spare time
influencing our
way of using them." 14
The impact of technology and our expectations
of time
Thanks to the ancestor of the clock, a computer
chip is found in
everything from the card which sings Happy Birthday
to the car engine
which today has as more computing power in it than
what powered the
spaceship Challenger. A computer chip is found in the
ATM machine
which scans your card for approval to the card-size
record of your
entire medical history. Today's software program is
obsolete tomorrow
and what seemed fast today in computing is a laggard
tomorrow.
We've given biological names and human
characteristics to our
technology. We use a mouse, surf a net, go into a
web, and interface
with modems. Windows are not for washing. Chips don't
come from logs.
And highways are banded by bauds not embankments.
Technology allows the weight of decisions to be
felt almost
instantly. Our ability to move earth, burn oil, and
drill across
once-impossible terrain creates a global impact of
more rapid
dimensions. Our ability to buy and move goods rapidly
and to churn out
products for consumers create stockpiles and waste
piles. Coca-Cola's
now-abandoned decision to alter the formula for
"classic" coke almost
destroyed the economy of Madagascar, the world's
largest vanilla
producing nation. (Now we ALL know one of the
ingredients in this
tightly held recipe!)
But there's good news. We've moved from the
industrial age to the
information age to the knowledge age.
"Technology gives entrepreneurs...the
freedom to challenge giant
companies and to break up concentration of power.
Technology gives
people the power to weave connections all over the
world. And
technology frees people from the tyranny of
place".
But speed seems to be of the essence. Regular
business operations
are looking at staffing or web alternatives to give
them a 24-7
presence (24 hours a day and seven days a week to
serve or court a
customer). Entrepreneurs are asked if they can move
their project from
idea to market in four months. That's the estimated
time of survival
in the fast-paced world of the Web, where startups
nest themselves and
soak up talent.
According to David Allen, one of the world's more
influential
thinkers on personal productivity, this is the
"silent trauma" of
knowledge workers everywhere. "We inhabit a
world," he says in which
there are no "edges to our jobs" and
"no limit to the potential
information that can help us do our job
betters." What's more, we're
in a competitive environment that's continually being
reshaped by the
Web.
Our expectation (or the expectation presumed of
the world around
us) is that we must jam, cram as much as we can
within the 24- hour
day. Kipling's line "fill the unforgiving minute
with 60 seconds worth
of distance run" can become a refrain because it
appears that the
running never stops.
Ironically, the very internet which allows me to
send my Oxford
daily journal to my 84 year-old Mother in Florida and
receive her
reply via web-TV—the very internet which allows me
to research from
my room because the libraries at Oxford don't have
material I can
use—the very internet which allowed my sister to
connect with an
extended world of friends so they could support her
and Noam has they
dealt with his pending death from lung cancer— can
also the same
instrument of torture and time strangulation.
The genie will not-and should not-go back into the
box. What is
required first is an understanding, an awareness of
the environment.
We too can be like the proverbial frog that slowly
boils to death
because he is not aware of the increasing heat.
Second, we can choose
to create our specific philosophy and culture within
this compressed
time and technology world.
The impact of compressed time on humans
The Silicon Valley is considered a prime location for
observing this
accelerated pace and compressed time. Three
anthropologists studying
in this area have heard this question: "If I
have to work on Internet
time, does that mean I also have to live on Internet
time too?" Years
of research have provided anthropologists with a
wealth of
observations and the conclusions are not yet in. They
are observing
that it's not just the do-more-faster syndrome but
also that the
demands of work are infiltrating personal lives. The
language and
mentality of work affect life at home.
There are other realities about the demands upon
our time. The
traditional family with a male breadwinner and wife
at home fits only
11% of today's households. (EAP digest, May, l992) In
l950, no
statistics were kept on married women in the labor
force with children
under one year of age, because it was so rare among
middle class
women. By l986, half of all women with babies under
one year of age
were in the paid work force. (Hochschild, The Second
Shift, l989)".
Not only are more women in the workforce, and
often doing a "second
shift" at home, but real wages have not risen
for the average worker.
"Just to reach the 1973 standard of living,
production workers and
non-supervisory workers (80% of the workforce) must
now work 245 more
hours or 6 extra weeks per year. In 1990, 1/4 of all
full-time workers
spent 49 or more hours on the job each week. Of these
almost half were
at work 60 hours or more. From 1969 to 1987, annual
leisure time has
decreased by 47 hours. The majority of Americans get
60 to 90 minutes
less sleep per night than they need for optimal
health and performance
(Schor The Overworked American, 1991) ".
The average employed person is now on the job an
additional 163
hours, or the equivalent of an extra month a year [up
from 20 years
ago]. Hours have been increasing throughout the
twenty-year period for
which we have data. The breakdown for men and women
shows lengthening
hours for both groups, but there is a "gender
gap" in the size of the
increase. Men are working nearly 98 more hours per
year, or two and a
half extra weeks. Women are doing about 305
additional hours. "
The last statistics also include work done in what
Hochschild calls
"the second shift." My personal observation
is that this dramatic
difference in gender work has changed. More men are
opting out to
raise their children and to pull an equal weight at
home with their
spouse. At the same time, women remain the heads of
single households
so the number of hours worked will be higher.
The physiological impact on humans
The natural rhythm of the world around us has been
altered by
technology. We can work through the night. We can
travel in hours to
distant lands. We can be at the beck and call of
anyone who has our
cell phone, pager, or e-mail address. And even if we
don't personally
own these pieces of technology (the ancestor of the
clock), we are
still caught in the demands of other people who are
running to their
own frantic drummer.
Our bodies are experiencing
"entrainment". Consider this
definition: "en·train1 (n-trn) v. tr.
en·trained, en·train·ing,
en·trains. To pull or draw along after itself.
Chemistry. To carry
(suspended particles, for example) along in a
current. [French
entrainer, from Old French: en-, in; see en-1 +
trainer, to drag; see
train.] en·trainer n. en·trainment. "
The current of speed is dragging us along. We've
moved from
hypertext to hyperspeed to hypertension. And the
compression of time
with the speed of technology will not slow down.
Therefore our task is
to create-in our organizations and in our lives-a
breathing space.
What can companies do?
I, for one, believe we'll reach a point in which
the mass hysteria
and frenetic dot.com world will ratchet down to a
more reasonable
pace. It was rewarding to read what the head of one
of the major
international consulting firms said on this matter:
"The difference today is that new ventures
are being built
entirely out of intellectual labor, with virtually
no physical
construction to support them and with no stock
options beings used
as payment. When the mass of illusionary wealth
comes crashing down
on our heads, the values associated with companies
built to last
rather than for quick gain will be vital to the
recovery of our
economy." Robert J Avila, Director, economic
and policy analysis,
PriceWaterhouseCoopers, New York.
To be "built to last" means that an
organization -whether of 1 or
10001 - has a purpose bigger than itself and draws
people to itself
because of practices, policies and that purpose.
Enlightened
organizations are realizing that the demand to get
and keep good
people is the definitive, competitive edge in the new
millennium.
Study after study reinforces the fact that people are
no longer
willing to sacrifice their life for the weekend, if
in fact they get
that. They want challenge, an opportunity to learn
continually,
respect, and recognition that there is a life outside
the job.
"Get it now—and enjoy it later" is one
of the guiding principles
in the dot.com world. Speed is fiercely addictive and
so is the
promise of fast money. But if building instant
fortunes means treating
people like machines—running them around the clock
until they burnout
and then bringing in next year's models—then the
best and the
brightest are eventually going to look elsewhere.
They'll trade paper
options for real options."
Some firms still just don't "get it".
Yahoo! a major web search
engine company, doesn't have a formal program to
address work-life
issues and it still mostly discourages employees from
working at
home—which is ironic, given the company's pioneering
role in making
virtual employment possible.
Wharton School of Business, in conjunction with
such firms as
Johnson & Johnson, Marriott and AT&T has
established a chair for the
study Work Life issues and programs. Organizations
are putting in
place flextime, job-sharing, telecommuting, and leave
time. In Fortune
Magazine's list of the top 100 businesses to work
for, one reads of
programs in place to help employees handle everything
from child and
elder care to sabbaticals. For example, Calico
Commerce has a
telecommuting policy, plans to build a second
satellite office for
people who have long commutes, offers a program that
allows employees
to take time off to build local Habitat for Humanity
homes, and
provides time off and leaves of absence for employees
who need a
break.
What we can do
Know your time signature
Just as the faces of the early clocks were painted
with the visage of
the owner, so too each one of us has his own specific
time signature.
It looks different at different parts of our life.
Our age, our
values, our vision of our life's purpose all
influence this signature.
Advice must then be filtered so we "sign
up" for that which best fits
us.
For example, what amazed most of my clients and
friends when I
announced I was going to Oxford were three things:
(1) I was going for
3 weeks and not going on business (2) I was going
away to think (3)
I'd produce a product when it was finished.
My time signature says that it is expedient to
have this
experience. I am confident it will be valuable in
ways yet to be
discovered. More importantly, I realize that a number
of people have
similar time signatures and yet will not give
themselves permission to
take the time.
Create a breathing space to reclaim natural
rhythm
Put your calendar where your intention is. Vinod
Khosla, founding CEO
of Sun Microsystems, literally sets a target of
dinner at home at
least 25 days a month and blocks it in his calendar.
Ben Carson,
pediatric neurosurgeon at John Hopkins Children's
Center, has a
morning ritual of meditation and quiet reading. He
recommends also
"going outside yourself and doing something that
has nothing to do
with your normal day's work. Craig Burzych, an air
traffic controller,
uses marathon training as a method for regaining
balance. Carisa
Bianchi, president and CEO of TBWA/Chiat/Day, never
works on
airplanes-no computer and no phone calls. This is her
time to unplug
with music and books.
Ritualizing is another way of creating breathing
space. A vice
president of a major corporation makes a list of his
next day
projects, locks it in his desk drawer, and as he
exits for the night,
looks at the locked drawer and says, "Now stay
there!".
Be a weeder
Speed is a function of how much stuff you let into
your life. Stuff is
my non-scientific term for everything from social
obligations with
people whom you would rather not converse with, to
the projects we
agree to do, to the overwhelm of paper which keeps us
looking for the
report we want, to the clutter of dishes because we
didn't "clean as
we went". There's more. Everyone has his or her
own list of stuff.
Weed it out.
Retreat to advance
The value of going away, without an agenda or a list
of "to dos",
allows one to gain perspective. Silent retreats are
becoming more
popular as people, weary of the surrounding ringing,
chattering,
clattering, honking, and wailing of machines and
humans, find solace
and perspective in staying at retreat houses.
Meditation
Learning to listen to our own inner music is another
tool in gaining a
sense of control over the feeling of time
compression. "Solitary time
is the doorway to our spirituality, when the self
opens up to a place
both timeless and time-full. The key to finding it is
contemplation.
We have discussed the rhythms of time to which we
entrain, and the
process of expanding the moment. Exploration of
feeling and
understanding the self (which is necessary to feeling
comfortable with
oneself, in solitude or at any time) are best reached
through the
practice of meditation. Meditation encourages this
expansion and
brings us into a more profound experience of the
moment, as we entrain
to a universal rhythm found deeply within".
Be in the NOW
We are all in what David Allen calls "weird
time" We are like the
Morita therapy practitioner who encourages people to
"play ball on
running water". This notion calls for us to be
totally present in the
NOW, concentrating on whatever is the
"ball" before us. Since our
minds tend to jump into "the next thing"
even while we are engaged,
this point of focus takes practice. Buddhists call
this practice
"mindfulness".
Be responsible
De Saint Exupery wrote, "little by little, the
machine will become
part of humanity and every machine will gradually
take on man's patina
and lose its identity in its function."
It seems, however, that we might have acquired the
machine's
patina.
Cipolla, writing in Clocks and Culture concurred
with the
following: "Social scientists sound like
engineers-like machines-when
they talk about human problems. The consequences of
this mechanistic
outlook unfortunately is strengthened by the
fascination with the
machine."
There's a dichotomy in our technology. The radio
took 30 years to
reach 50 million users. The television look 13 years.
And in four
years, the web boasted 50 million users. The growth
rate is so
exponential that I found it impossible to get a
current number. At the
same time, while radio and televisions are found in
even most of the
poorest households, a digital divide based upon
finance and education
threatens to create a widen social chasm. This is
precisely the
problem which Cipolla is talking about in his
writing. It can not be
addressed through technology alone but through a
philosophy of
inclusion in the wealth of education, housing, and
job opportunity
because it is the RIGHT thing to do.
"Only a fool would indiscriminately condemn
the machine as such. We
desperately need more and better machines because we
desperately need
economic and technological development. But we also
desperately need a
development of our philosophy and of our capacity for
handling human
affairs so that we put our machines to good,
reputable work. If not we
may conceivably become toys of toys, tragic victims
of our inanimate
slaves".
Works Cited
Brockman, John (editor). The Greatest Inventions
of the Past 2000
Years. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000.
Burrus, Dan. Technotrends. 1997.
Cipolla, Carlo M.. Clocks and Culture. London:
Collins, 1967.
Cipolla,CM. Guns and Sails in the Early Phase of
European
Expansion. London: 1965.
De Saint Exupery. Wind, Sand and Stars. New York:
1939.
Katherine Mieskowski. "How to Speed Up Your
Start Up." Fast Company
Vol 34. May 2000. 138-154.
Keith Hammonds. "You Can do Anything But Not
Everything." Fast
Company Vol.34. May 2000.
Micklethwatt, John and Woolridge, Adrian. Future
Perfect: The
Challenge and Hidden Promise of Globalization . New
York: Crown, 2000. Peate, IC. Clock and watchmaker. Cardiff:
1945.
Rechtschaffen, Stephan. Timeshifting: Creating More
Time to Enjoy
Your Life. New York: Doubleday Books, 1998.
Shorr, Judith. The Overworked American. New York:
Doubleday, 1996.
http://www.centerforworkandfamily.com/facts.htm.
"Technology." Britannica.
Tony Schwartz. "Life/Work Column." Fast
Company Vol. 34. May 2000.
334.
© Eileen McDargh, McDargh Communications. All rights reserved. You may reprint this article so long as it remains intact with the byline and if all links are made live.
Since 1980, Hall of Fame speaker Eileen McDargh has helped Fortune 100 companies as well as individuals create connections that count and conversations that matter. Her latest book is Gifts from the Mountain-Simple Truths for Life's Complexities. Her other books include Talk Ain't
Cheap...It's Priceless and Work for a Living and Still Be Free to Live, one of the first books to address the notion of balance and authentic work. A 59 year-old grandmother, she recently returned from climbing among the highest mountains in the world. Find out more about this compelling
and effective professional speaker and join her free newsletter by visiting http://www.EileenMcDargh.com.

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