Perceptions of Time

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Rich's New from Camp Webegone

Each time I drive to Prospect, there is a transition that happens when I start driving on Hwy 62. When entering the highway, I must get up to speed with the traffic - which is at least 60 miles an hour. As I speed up, nearing 40 I start to notice it feels really fast. 

That feeling reminds me of coming back from Haiti, which I describe as getting on an on-ramp to a freeway where everyone is going 70 and I am going 25. So it happens here too.

 

Bigfoot Rich

The ability to adapt comes in rapidly. And after a few minutes of driving at 60, it feels normal. And I realize that I have once again entered a new perception of normal. I had though 40 was fast, but now I am traveling 60, and it's normal (and it's still too slow for some of the other travelers on the road).

In Clinic I often would talk about the dance that massage therapists need to do with time. New students often have difficulty adapting to doing a massage in an hour. But doing so is necessary in our culture built around Industrial timeframes.  

The massage therapist must live in Industrial time yet be able to move into what I call organic time in order to do good therapy. Allowing the muscle to let go is an organic process, and the good therapist can monitor the session time and also go into the zone that is organic time. It is all perception.

Meditation takes you into organic time. Those moments in meditation when you are absolutely in the moment. Those beautiful, wonderful moments. It too is a perception.  

But because it is all perception, the moment you notice it, you are not doing it any more. You can intend it to happen, but you cannot make it happen. That too is perception.

So last night, sitting at the fire lost in the moment of making fire and the process of keeping it flaming, Cheryl asks what I am thinking. I was not thinking that I was in a Fire moment. But I was. It is a relaxing place. 

Perception of time changes often here in camp. Our morning routine is a structure that we embrace. And in the structured routine, we enter into a kind of trance. A trance we create that helps us get things done. And the time here seems to evaporate, and we suddenly find ourselves at the end of the day, and just how did that happen without us noticing, and what day is it anyway?

I think living in Industrial time is very stressful. Part of that stress is about preparing for the future, a preparation often driven by fear. Will I have enough resources (money fuel food etc.) to survive? What will happen to my family?

That is one end of the spectrum. The other end is thinking about time from the perspective of aging. Listening to someone on radio talk about being in his 70s and noting that for someone in their 20s, their perception of their life is ahead. They have 60 years ahead (they hope) and just 20 behind. The 70 year old has 20 ahead (they really hope) and 70 behind. So naturally the focus shifts. 

And how did I get here so fast? And it was fast and now 20 years seems like it is rushing forward....Time keeps on slippin slippin into the future...

But that is all it is...a perception....