2021: Creating a Lexicon of Future

T is for Time

Revaluing Time

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” ~ Socrates

In 2020, we were forced to examine our deeply ingrained association between time and money: are we only here to make a living? or are we here to make a life?

The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living: How Socrates’ 2000-year-old wisdom acts as the simplest form of self-help today. (Photo by Stephen Kraakmo on Unsplash)

Ancient Greeks Had 3 Expressions of Time: Chronos, Kairos & Aion

If Chronos is the time of the ego, and Kairos is the time of the Soul, Aion is the time of the Self. ~ Minding Time: Chronos, Kairos, and Aion in an Archetypal Cosmos

1. Chronos (chronic time/Saturn): quantitative, homogeneous, secular time. The modern age has entirely succumbed to the rule of chronic time. Chronic time is empty, passing meaninglessly and without narrative arc. Chronic time is mere conventional measurement, a means of counting time so as to be able to use it as we see fit for our private economic or public political ends, as something to be “spent” (time is money) or “wasted” (time is a resource). Chronic time is laid out on a grid upon which unremarkable change can be plotted; it is time as materialistic physical science knows it, where the past is imagined to be no different ontologically from the present or the future (that is, there is no creativity, no teleology). Chronic time is utterly indifferent…