System No. 2: Appreciating the moments with transitions
Timefulism’s second system breaks the waking day into 64 fifteen-minute slices. That helps remind us of how much time we have in a day — much can be experienced, enjoyed, or accomplished in 15 minutes — and we get 64 such slices of time every single day. And between every two adjacent slices is “transition” which can further enhance our appreciation of time’s flow.
A great quote about time:
“Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward offered, for they are gone forever.” -Horace Mann (1796 – 1859)
Another great quote about time:
“You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the magic tissue of the Universe of your life. No one can take it from you. No one receives either more or less than you receive. Waste your infinitely precious commodity as much as you will, and you cannot draw on the future. Impossible to get into debt. You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste tomorrow; it is kept for you.” -Arnold Bennett (1867 – 1931)
And saving the best for last:
“Time is not measured by clocks but by moments” – Author unknown; probably a greeting card writer.
In other words, rather than use time as a mere marker on an endless continuum, Timefulness reminds us that time — and life itself — is in the moments, and each day has the potential for many, many moments. And every “moment” that we are alive is a moment that we can and should cherish, be thankful for, and lovingly make use of.
While time itself is abstract, the 15 minute span between (e.g.) 2:30 and 2:45 pm on any given day is not. It is a chunk — a portion of the “magic tissue . . . of our life.” We possess it fully, and it is there for us to use however we see fit, subject to whatever commitments we had already made for it. Subject to those commitments, we have the opportunity to convert that tissue into something — perhaps (1) an act of kindness that will live on after the moment is passed, (2) a new, useful, or pleasant memory trace (e.g. from deliberate learning or experience), (3) a new connection with another human being, (4) a contribution toward one’s long-term physical or mental health, or (5) a step or two of progress on the road to creation.
The key to developing a more personal relationship with time is to give each “chunk” of time during the day a unique identifier, so that you are aware of it while you are “in” it. It’s not enough to say 2:30-2:45 p.m. Those are just abstract numbers.
The Japanese recognized this long ago. They broke up each day into twelve chunks — six for daytime and six for nighttime. And they associated each chunk with something tangible, real, and alive — an animal. Here’s how they did it (from Wikipedia, describing “Traditional Japanese Time”):
Notice that the animals in Japanese time correspond exactly to those of the Chinese Zodiac. Here is a carving of the Chinese zodiac on the ceiling of the gate to Kushida Shrine in Fukuoka, Japan.
Remember that this is a 24-hour clock, consisting of 12 two-hour chunks. Although for the Japanese, the rabbit always began at dawn (resulting in changing hour lengths depending on the season), Timefulism starts the waking day with the rabbit from 6 am to 8 am, moves on to the dragon (8-10 am), etc.
Recognizing the press of modern life, Timefulism divides each of these two hour chunks of time into eight fifteen-minute “quartals,” and provides associations for each one, so as to make them more concrete, which in turn helps us remember and appropriately honor and cherish them as they go by.
There are practically unlimited systematic associations that one can come up with for any given 15-minute slice of the day, and many of these are demonstrated at the www.humanity.com website, but for now, let’s keep it simple and stick with Japanese time.
Remember that there are 64 15-minute chunks in a day. Since 64 is 8 squared, that means we can arrange our clock as a 64 squares within a larger square, just like a chessboard:
Timefulism’s daily clock starts at the upper left, at a8, at 6:00 a.m. and proceeds, 15 minutes at a time, across the 8th rank to the upper right square, h8, at 745 a.m.
While one might be tempted to “restart” the clock on the right side of the page each time, the “continuity” of time seems to demand that time go back and forth, such that we move from h8 (7:45 a.m.) to h7 (8:00 a.m.). Time then proceeds to the left, 15 minutes at a time, until a7, which is 9:45 a.m, and so on:
Going back and forth has the additional benefit of alternating between light and dark squares on the chessboard. Going back and forth this way is called “Boustrophedon”; there are ancient Greek scripts that do that (although they also use mirror images of the letters on alternativng lines), and there are also some modern usages. So from now on, rather than saying we’re going back and forth, we’ll say we’re proceeding “boustophedonically,” which is probably the longest word you will see today.
That leaves us with the question of how do we divide up an animal into 8 distinct parts without consulting a butcher. There are many possibilities, which I’m going to try to elaborate on in a later post; in the meantime I welcome any ideas. Here are two I’ve had so far:
- Each rank can be viewed as a path that the designated animal traverses over the course of its two-hour tenure. I’ve already constructed “rooms” for each of the 64 squares of the chessboard (see humanity64.com) , and the animal could be visiting the relevant rooms. But I keep thinking that a simpler path — in nature — would be less cluttered and might have serve the same purpose. The rooms will fit into the system in some other way. Here is what Llama 3.1 spit out when I gave it a prompt for how I would visualize the nature path:That’s inconsistent with my prompt in numerous ways. I wanted it to (1) have the segments of the path alternating between being sunlit and being in a shadow (to corresponded to the light and dark squares of the chessboard, (2) to have flowers representing the colors of the rainbow, in order, on the right, and (3) to have marker posts for each segment, but not those planks that it came up with. But it’s a start, and helps convey the idea that the a two-hour chunk of time can be seen as a journey through nature, with changing scenery.
- Either separately or in combination with the “path” idea, we can use the letters corresponding to the files (i.e. a-h) to create a adjective for the animal. E.g. on the “a-file,” the animal can be “astute,” on the b-file it can be “benevolent,” on the c-file it can be “courageous,” on the d-h files it can be “decent,” “even-handed,” “fun,” “grateful,” and “honest” (loosely based on the cardinal virtues and plus the theological virtues, with “fun” thrown in). Of course, we could use any adjectives we want (e.g. argyle, boring, crafty, dim, erratic, fair, grotesque, hairy), if they help to make the animals and their placement on the path more memorable.
That’s on the second system for now – we’ll explore the 64 “quartals” more in a subsequent post/newsletter.