Being in Time
There was once a time, not too long ago, when time itself was something that we had precious little of. Back in the height of the industrial age, for instance, when young boys had fifty hour workweeks just like their fathers. Back further, in the centuries of agricultural predominance, when the daily clock and yearly calendar revolved for most around the tasks that had to be done in order to maintain orderly operation at a farm. Even further back, before agriculture, when survival depended on making good use of your time. Compared to these ages (except perhaps the earliest, depending on the specifics of their lifestyle and the predominance of food sources), we have far more free time than anyone ever in history. Western cultures in particular, including America, have a lot of free time, to put it simply. We have limits on regularly paid workweeks. We generally make enough to have a lifestyle that is at the top of the worldwide heap. We don’t have to watch after our own lives in most cases. We, civilized men and women that we are, have it good.
But if that’s the case, why do we never seem to have enough time for anything? For isn’t that the way it always is these days? We don’t have time to do all the things that need to be done. We have chores, we have jobs, we have family, upcoming events, children’s sport games, shopping, housework, bills, so on, so forth. As the time and place for which the least amount of work is required in order to survive, we seem to have the least time of anyone else. How come so many, especially in the cities where all basic needs are basically provided for assuming one has the money, have so little time? What do we do with our time that leaves us so limited? Do we actually need to do more in order to have the same standard of living, or is it rather our sense of time that has it changed?
A comparison might help here. With labor laws and living wages that provide us with a universal way of access to necessities, the advent and constant advance of technology, and the overall move forward in coordination that humanity has undergone, the intuition seems to be that we should have more time than ever before. After all, we don’t have to work all day to supply enough money to live, at least not in the case of your average middle-class (and even lower-middle class) household. So something else must have changed in the shift from agricultural to industrial, or from industrial to technological, society that has more than offset any gains in literal free time. Perhaps a change in perception, or maybe in what sorts of things are necessary. Perhaps both.
Let’s first take a look at the more literal aspect: what sorts of things do people ‘have’ to do to maintain a basic level of living? Note that I said ‘basic’ level of living, rather than something such as subsistence. This will, of course, be important later.
For much of Western history (which is what’s under consideration here; other culture, which have less clear developmental paths, will be left out for now), the farm, and agriculture in general, was the standard way of living for a broad majority of people. Cities were not the centers of human population, and with their absence came the absence of a centrally coordinated process of production. As a result, much of what was necessary to live was produced either wholly by oneself, or wholly by someone else. A blacksmith acquired all the necessary materials and made his product himself; hence the need to train someone, an apprentice, in all the necessary steps. The same went for a miller, a baker, and so on. Everyone put their lives into their product, and that took a long time and a lot of work. Technology, of course, was also lacking; farming, blacksmithing, and so on were done by hand. Each product cost a great amount of labor. And because of the lesser degree of urbanization, and the general lack of technology, people had to do much more simply to maintain basic security. Even daily products unrelated to one’s work had to be made by oneself. You couldn’t just go out to market and find, for instance, ready-made clothing; often, someone in the family had to make it. Thus everything required effort, and the time spent meeting a base level of existence was consuming.
The assembly line represented an amazing change, as it completely altered the way in which a thing is made as well as the role of the worker. Rather than going through the long process associated with the creation of a single thing by a single individual, now a person practices a single step, simple and quick on its own. The process becomes streamlined, with people whose job it is to acquire materials, others who build basic components, and others who put the basic components together into a complete product. Much time is saved, and much more is produced. Further, with the advent of the industrial age, many of the most basic needs of societies were starting, slowly, to be taken care of. Cures for diseases were emerging. Basic management of waste would start to show up. The move to cities would reduce the problem of security against a hostile environment, taken in the literal sense. Many basic supplies that would take hours, days, months of work to produce at home now could be simply purchased as mass-produced products.
However, the industrial age did not eliminate some of the most basic problems. Sanitation, health, and so on still had little outside support. Most seriously, rampant poverty existed. The time not spent making one’s own livelihood was now spent making a wage; the fourteen-hour, six day a week work schedule does not count time spent maintaining the household along with any of the other affairs of daily life. Thus time was still nowhere to be found for most.
But what about now? In America there are forty-hour workweeks (sometimes less in Europe), and for perhaps the first time a good number of people don’t have to work those extra hours to maintain a subsistence level of living. Our basic needs are in many ways met simply by our working, in the form of taxes. We no longer face any real external dangers, there are cures for many of our illnesses, and we have a culture with many pastimes. So why do we still seem so busy? It still seems like we always have something that needs to be done. There’s always something to get out of the way, something unfinished. What hasn’t changed from the past, if everything seems so different?
The answer seems not a lack of change, but in fact the exact opposite; what has changed most essentially is our frame of reference. First we must ask, what sort of lifestyle do we today consider, to use the term I used before, ‘basic?’ In the agricultural and industrial eras, what was sought after was not what we today would consider a sufficiently complete life. Everyday life, of course, was extraordinarily hard back then, and the most one might hope for was a life that met basic needs. One wanted bread on the table, and much more was not expected. In sum, what seems ideal for the starving person is food, not a palace; likewise, what is important for the life of the agricultural or industrial person, what has to be done, is enough to maintain the basic means of living.
But if a palace is not what makes the starving person happy, what about the person who is well fed? More food will only do so much; soon one wants more. A life where the basic needs are already met, and where (relatively) little effort is spent achieving such ends, is a rather boring life in practice. People want more, not simply more to do, but more to have, to accomplish. In fact, we grow up with the urge, the drive, the desire, whatever may be its source, to go further. The person raised in a middle-class household is generally not satisfied with a lower-class existence, even if it would be enough to supply basic needs; such a life is worse than the one spent growing up, and we think that we should at least be able to do that well. A good capitalist economy runs on such desires, where people want not just to be getting by, but to be more successful than they have been. It’s always better to do more and to have more; if this is a fact, then not even the rich man should be expected to be satisfied with what he has (and almost never is, it seems). In times past, this was perhaps true for only the few; but now, we are all raised with a sense that we can do better not only than the minimum, but better than whatever we have started at. Thus, from the beginning, we are driven to do more.
But what more? One usually becomes rich not by increasing working hours, but by doing something new. One breaks into a new area, or works one’s way into a position that isn’t easy to acquire. The drive for greater success means that more effort than is necessary must be expended to succeed. But even this doesn’t seem to give a complete answer to the question of lost time. For though many are absorbed by such desires, and all of us usually feel them, it’s more than that that takes up our time; what makes us so busy now often don’t seem necessary from a subsistence point of view, but when viewed from outside, say from the perspective of a middle-class person in a third world country, don’t seem important at all. Things like community groups and associations one is a part of, side projects one takes on, the many small tasks associated with raising children (more on this in a bit, as it’s not quite right, of course, to just call this ‘unnecessary’), and so on. Many of these things, from the perspective of the past, don’t seem necessary. What is the vital importance, for instance, of being a part of the PTA? Why do our kids need to be in a sport, or to practice an instrument? Surely these things have good effects, and prove their worth, but how necessary are they? Couldn’t our children get by without them? For our own part, why do we spend so much time attending shows or meetings for things that aren’t at all essential? Why do we try so hard to get in touch with the culture, to know people, and so on? Are these tasks really necessary, and can they even truly be separated from our success drives? What are we aiming for here?
This mode of reference constitutes a real change. What was ‘necessary’ in the past? Basically, things tied to survival. There were some things beyond that, but they didn’t have the simple presence of something that needed to be done. What is necessary now? Or to go back a bit, what sorts of things are required to live at the current minimum standard? No longer survival; now, we want well-rounded, capable people who will succeed and reach a higher position in the world than those that came before. We need a complete personality, whatever that means, not just a breadwinner. Our children are going to be astronauts, presidents, whereas children of the past had the certainty that they would simply do what their parents did. Their jobs were time-consuming, but straightforward; we, of a more obsessive generation, want more for ourselves and our children. There’s nothing ignoble about this dream of social mobility, and we do now have the real means to make it real; however, it doesn’t come without a cost, a sacrifice. That cost is that we can only settle for more. To become a success, or to be a real member of the community, or to have kids that we can be proud of, seems now to require so many more things; keeping up with the Joneses is about far more than a bottom line. These infinite tasks take on the hue of necessity, because we can’t see ourselves aiming for less. Even vacations become part of the program; we have to see so many sights, do so many things together; we allot time spent as a family relaxing. There’s something a bit disturbing, and decidedly American, about this constant striving, though any culture that starts to shift its emphasis to the success story, the story of rags to riches through hard work and dedication, is probably going to see it. Less than ever before is needed to carve out a simple but sufficient existence, but as I sit here typing on my computer with the intent of working towards the development of my thought, so that I might someday become a serious writer that can get recognition based on the quality of his ideas, someone for whom being a career janitor would be seen by his friends and family as a failure plain and simple, it seems that the leisure we now have the possibility to act on has been absorbed by a new world of needs.
A final question, in that case, is whether it is even possible to live a relaxed life for someone who is raised in such a culture. The answer is of course; people do this all the time. But one must have the right mindset for it, one that is willing to step back every once in a while and doesn’t become obsessed easily. Some have this by nature, whether because they are naturally free of stress or naturally lazy. For the rest, we need to make sure to instill in them a sense that sometimes you need to not do anything useful if your goal is to keep your head on straight.
But if that’s the case, why do we never seem to have enough time for anything? For isn’t that the way it always is these days? We don’t have time to do all the things that need to be done. We have chores, we have jobs, we have family, upcoming events, children’s sport games, shopping, housework, bills, so on, so forth. As the time and place for which the least amount of work is required in order to survive, we seem to have the least time of anyone else. How come so many, especially in the cities where all basic needs are basically provided for assuming one has the money, have so little time? What do we do with our time that leaves us so limited? Do we actually need to do more in order to have the same standard of living, or is it rather our sense of time that has it changed?
A comparison might help here. With labor laws and living wages that provide us with a universal way of access to necessities, the advent and constant advance of technology, and the overall move forward in coordination that humanity has undergone, the intuition seems to be that we should have more time than ever before. After all, we don’t have to work all day to supply enough money to live, at least not in the case of your average middle-class (and even lower-middle class) household. So something else must have changed in the shift from agricultural to industrial, or from industrial to technological, society that has more than offset any gains in literal free time. Perhaps a change in perception, or maybe in what sorts of things are necessary. Perhaps both.
Let’s first take a look at the more literal aspect: what sorts of things do people ‘have’ to do to maintain a basic level of living? Note that I said ‘basic’ level of living, rather than something such as subsistence. This will, of course, be important later.
For much of Western history (which is what’s under consideration here; other culture, which have less clear developmental paths, will be left out for now), the farm, and agriculture in general, was the standard way of living for a broad majority of people. Cities were not the centers of human population, and with their absence came the absence of a centrally coordinated process of production. As a result, much of what was necessary to live was produced either wholly by oneself, or wholly by someone else. A blacksmith acquired all the necessary materials and made his product himself; hence the need to train someone, an apprentice, in all the necessary steps. The same went for a miller, a baker, and so on. Everyone put their lives into their product, and that took a long time and a lot of work. Technology, of course, was also lacking; farming, blacksmithing, and so on were done by hand. Each product cost a great amount of labor. And because of the lesser degree of urbanization, and the general lack of technology, people had to do much more simply to maintain basic security. Even daily products unrelated to one’s work had to be made by oneself. You couldn’t just go out to market and find, for instance, ready-made clothing; often, someone in the family had to make it. Thus everything required effort, and the time spent meeting a base level of existence was consuming.
The assembly line represented an amazing change, as it completely altered the way in which a thing is made as well as the role of the worker. Rather than going through the long process associated with the creation of a single thing by a single individual, now a person practices a single step, simple and quick on its own. The process becomes streamlined, with people whose job it is to acquire materials, others who build basic components, and others who put the basic components together into a complete product. Much time is saved, and much more is produced. Further, with the advent of the industrial age, many of the most basic needs of societies were starting, slowly, to be taken care of. Cures for diseases were emerging. Basic management of waste would start to show up. The move to cities would reduce the problem of security against a hostile environment, taken in the literal sense. Many basic supplies that would take hours, days, months of work to produce at home now could be simply purchased as mass-produced products.
However, the industrial age did not eliminate some of the most basic problems. Sanitation, health, and so on still had little outside support. Most seriously, rampant poverty existed. The time not spent making one’s own livelihood was now spent making a wage; the fourteen-hour, six day a week work schedule does not count time spent maintaining the household along with any of the other affairs of daily life. Thus time was still nowhere to be found for most.
But what about now? In America there are forty-hour workweeks (sometimes less in Europe), and for perhaps the first time a good number of people don’t have to work those extra hours to maintain a subsistence level of living. Our basic needs are in many ways met simply by our working, in the form of taxes. We no longer face any real external dangers, there are cures for many of our illnesses, and we have a culture with many pastimes. So why do we still seem so busy? It still seems like we always have something that needs to be done. There’s always something to get out of the way, something unfinished. What hasn’t changed from the past, if everything seems so different?
The answer seems not a lack of change, but in fact the exact opposite; what has changed most essentially is our frame of reference. First we must ask, what sort of lifestyle do we today consider, to use the term I used before, ‘basic?’ In the agricultural and industrial eras, what was sought after was not what we today would consider a sufficiently complete life. Everyday life, of course, was extraordinarily hard back then, and the most one might hope for was a life that met basic needs. One wanted bread on the table, and much more was not expected. In sum, what seems ideal for the starving person is food, not a palace; likewise, what is important for the life of the agricultural or industrial person, what has to be done, is enough to maintain the basic means of living.
But if a palace is not what makes the starving person happy, what about the person who is well fed? More food will only do so much; soon one wants more. A life where the basic needs are already met, and where (relatively) little effort is spent achieving such ends, is a rather boring life in practice. People want more, not simply more to do, but more to have, to accomplish. In fact, we grow up with the urge, the drive, the desire, whatever may be its source, to go further. The person raised in a middle-class household is generally not satisfied with a lower-class existence, even if it would be enough to supply basic needs; such a life is worse than the one spent growing up, and we think that we should at least be able to do that well. A good capitalist economy runs on such desires, where people want not just to be getting by, but to be more successful than they have been. It’s always better to do more and to have more; if this is a fact, then not even the rich man should be expected to be satisfied with what he has (and almost never is, it seems). In times past, this was perhaps true for only the few; but now, we are all raised with a sense that we can do better not only than the minimum, but better than whatever we have started at. Thus, from the beginning, we are driven to do more.
But what more? One usually becomes rich not by increasing working hours, but by doing something new. One breaks into a new area, or works one’s way into a position that isn’t easy to acquire. The drive for greater success means that more effort than is necessary must be expended to succeed. But even this doesn’t seem to give a complete answer to the question of lost time. For though many are absorbed by such desires, and all of us usually feel them, it’s more than that that takes up our time; what makes us so busy now often don’t seem necessary from a subsistence point of view, but when viewed from outside, say from the perspective of a middle-class person in a third world country, don’t seem important at all. Things like community groups and associations one is a part of, side projects one takes on, the many small tasks associated with raising children (more on this in a bit, as it’s not quite right, of course, to just call this ‘unnecessary’), and so on. Many of these things, from the perspective of the past, don’t seem necessary. What is the vital importance, for instance, of being a part of the PTA? Why do our kids need to be in a sport, or to practice an instrument? Surely these things have good effects, and prove their worth, but how necessary are they? Couldn’t our children get by without them? For our own part, why do we spend so much time attending shows or meetings for things that aren’t at all essential? Why do we try so hard to get in touch with the culture, to know people, and so on? Are these tasks really necessary, and can they even truly be separated from our success drives? What are we aiming for here?
This mode of reference constitutes a real change. What was ‘necessary’ in the past? Basically, things tied to survival. There were some things beyond that, but they didn’t have the simple presence of something that needed to be done. What is necessary now? Or to go back a bit, what sorts of things are required to live at the current minimum standard? No longer survival; now, we want well-rounded, capable people who will succeed and reach a higher position in the world than those that came before. We need a complete personality, whatever that means, not just a breadwinner. Our children are going to be astronauts, presidents, whereas children of the past had the certainty that they would simply do what their parents did. Their jobs were time-consuming, but straightforward; we, of a more obsessive generation, want more for ourselves and our children. There’s nothing ignoble about this dream of social mobility, and we do now have the real means to make it real; however, it doesn’t come without a cost, a sacrifice. That cost is that we can only settle for more. To become a success, or to be a real member of the community, or to have kids that we can be proud of, seems now to require so many more things; keeping up with the Joneses is about far more than a bottom line. These infinite tasks take on the hue of necessity, because we can’t see ourselves aiming for less. Even vacations become part of the program; we have to see so many sights, do so many things together; we allot time spent as a family relaxing. There’s something a bit disturbing, and decidedly American, about this constant striving, though any culture that starts to shift its emphasis to the success story, the story of rags to riches through hard work and dedication, is probably going to see it. Less than ever before is needed to carve out a simple but sufficient existence, but as I sit here typing on my computer with the intent of working towards the development of my thought, so that I might someday become a serious writer that can get recognition based on the quality of his ideas, someone for whom being a career janitor would be seen by his friends and family as a failure plain and simple, it seems that the leisure we now have the possibility to act on has been absorbed by a new world of needs.
A final question, in that case, is whether it is even possible to live a relaxed life for someone who is raised in such a culture. The answer is of course; people do this all the time. But one must have the right mindset for it, one that is willing to step back every once in a while and doesn’t become obsessed easily. Some have this by nature, whether because they are naturally free of stress or naturally lazy. For the rest, we need to make sure to instill in them a sense that sometimes you need to not do anything useful if your goal is to keep your head on straight.
posted by Derek at 11:48 PM
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