I feel there have been so many lessons about time, and personal space this week.
Two very different books talking about very different sides of the same things. And the ironic lessos that arose from trying to talk about either of them. ‘Flow’ talking about the pleasure of having a quest or a goal. Something that makes time rich and wonderful and which moves effortlessly round the task like a well balanced tool. ’Faster’ on the other hand illustrating the futility of trying to hoard or save time when you have no worthwhile way to spend it. That compromising everything leaves us with nothing to hold onto. Nothing to love. Nothing to admire and respect and cherish
It sounds obvious to say you can’t create time or the space to use time. Space is as much mental as physical. After an exhausting day there may be plenty of time – but jobs can so easily just turn to dust in the hands of the weary. And it is no use trying to make either time or space when the task is bright and fresh. My own attempts at hacking time have been spectacularly unsuccessful this week. Stretching and squeezing time like a toothpaste tube doesn’t work. It just leads to an ugly splurge of consequences that need to be worked through and sorted.
Wisdom comes in making the right compromises. Still trying, still having goals but having the realism to know that the time to achieve them is constrained. Learning to think inside the box. Learning to compromise some of the important parameters of time cost and quality rather than losing the lot by not finishing.
One of the other books I read this week was Joan Aitken’s The Witch of Clatteringshaws. A book the author chose to finish quickly in a big bang ending, rather than to leave either the long running series of stories, or the final tale unfinished after her death
There are time when a speedy end is indeed better than a half finished story
