Staring at the clock, the second hand sweeps.
Is it faster now than when I was younger?
The clock ticks. Incompressible seconds relentlessly remind us of some next impending deadline.
Meanwhile, when we are in a groove, time suspends. We are there. Composing, creating, reacting, playing! It’s only when we look up that we notice how much has passed.
We have an internal sense of time. But there is often a disconnect between this experience and the mechanical march of the clock that can shape how we approach our work.
Time’s propensity to bend might seem only for the extremes of physics, appearing as we travel near the speed of light. But even Einstein described time experientially:
“When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.”[^1]
The measures of the moment, the afternoon, the time in conversation and the like are simply more connected to nature and our experience of it. Even within the moment, time expands and contracts.
This temporal tension between the clock and the self often creates a paralyzing dilemma:
- If we dive in, we might lose track of the world’s time. Other important matters might be missed.
- If we do not dive in, we also lose track of what might be important to us, never starting, as we hope for the “right” conditions to align.
Left in indecision, we might wait for the next cruel due date’s approach. Watching from a side-long glance, it prepares its final pounce to put us into fright, flight, and the occasional tumble. A terrible solution.
What if we found a structure to allow the moment its own time, while meeting the world in its time?
We can find evidence of such beautiful natural expressions in music. While much of music deeply binds itself to the metronome, a new elegance arises when it allows a more more natural sense of time.
Frederic Chopin, for example, invoked tempo rubato, also called “stolen time,” in which he would break away from metronomic precision. Slowing down, speeding up he would emphasize and exaggerate to provide space for emotions to take form, not only in notes, but in the spaces between them.
Deeply influenced by Chopin in my early piano studies, I often explore this same concept. Here’s my attempt with Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”.
When we can do the same for our work, providing our ideas their time to form, we do not force them into the gears of an Industrial Age clock.
For example, when engaging by way of daily visits, creativity and productivity are given a structure, but one that provides a freedom to bloom in a more natural form.
– Kourosh
PS Is there some project you could make a daily visit to starting today? Something with a deadline rather far off, perhaps? You don’t have do a thing beyond simply showing up, and being there for a brief moment. Of course, it’s also fine if you happen to nudge it forward…
[^1]: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/11/24/hot-stove/
