Oh, the irony of reading “Saving Time: Discovering A Life Beyond the Clock” by Jenny Odell as an audiobook to be efficient.
I plugged the wireless earphones into my ear, press a button on my phone to allow the narration of this thesis over modern day concept, or dare I say, the American gospel of “Time is gold” as I walked the dog around the neighborhood, making sure I got in my daily step count. I turned the pages of my decades old memories, thinking of when this pull towards productivity started. There’s a growing itch inside of me that keeps saying that it doesn’t have to be like this.
I remember deadlines, yes, that flaming ember of urgency to move and act towards the set date of a goal, a deliverable. I remember the focus on the sprint to meet those commitments and crossing the finish line with a deep exhale of relief, shaking my hands and legs to release the tension built up in my body, and then allowing it to rest and recover before having a go again.
As a competitive swimmer, the most hated events were those that were back-to-back without that downtime to breathe. I knew that as a child. I sulk and grumble that it shouldn’t be like this. As an advertising busy body in the Philippines in the early 2000s, I remembered celebratory pauses in between campaigns and projects to allow each team member to admire their hard work and, again, breathe. There were the two-hour lunches, agency day aways, when media partners and clients were informed that we were unreachable and unable to work or simply a good hour when we’d all sit down on the couch and joke around before the first half of the advertising day was to sunset.
But that was a time when laptops were reserved only for the top most echelons of the corporate pyramid, smartphones were only a figment of science fiction imagination of the masses, at the same time already being developed inside secretive research labs of companies, the internet connection sparse, not ubiquitous, download speeds slow and expensive. There was a place and time for everything. Work meant coming in to press the power button of the CPU at my desk, then turning it off as my work day ended. Taking public transportation meant the actual travel and the occasional naps, breathing in the closed space with fellow commuters. It was not working and insert juggling the balls other activities here.
Then I thought of the Empress card of the Major Arcana, the third card of the twenty-two card series, following the progression of the Fool, the Magician and the High Priestess, preceding the Emperor. The Risk, the action, the internal contemplation then the Empress followed by the stern discipline and structure.
Seated on a throne lined with plush pillows and velvet throws, the Empress remains calm, relaxed with the lush forest, a babbling brook running through it behind her and golden wheat stalks swaying in the wind by her feet. Her head crowned with a constellation of stars, while heavy, sits light on her equally golden locks. In her hand, a golden scepter with a golden orb. Her also sumptuous robe, dotted with pomegranate halves, bursting with juicy seeds, the epitome of lounge wear, draped on her body.
The Empress is nature and nurture. The Tagalog word “aruga” comes to mind, the comfort of being cradled and cared for. She is the celebration of all things beautiful from the canopy of shade from the blazing sun, the whisper of the cool breeze, the murals on the skyscraper walls, the soft linen tunic covers your body, the crystal clear waters of a stream, the golden summer Philippine mango to the stars that hang onto the night sky. She is creativity. She is sensuality. She is the softness of life. She is emotion. She is Venus personified.
When one pulls this card, it is the call to luxuriate in the finer things in life. Not even necessarily expensive things or experiences, but whatever it is that gives you life, whatever nurtures your soul.
I used to complain a whole lot about face-to-face meetings with clients, often those that could’ve been an email or required even more executive time than needed considering the crawl along EDSA from Makati to Ortigas. A seven kilometer journey that took half an hour or at worse an hour and a half. That’s at least four to thirteen minutes per kilometer. “We could do so much more with that time.” Me and my teammates used to grumble.
Looking back, that downtime was the ultimate luxury - a cold drink, a breather, a respite from the toil of the grind.
We’d sit in silence in the cocoon of the air conditioned taxi cab. Sometimes we’d nod into a nap. Sometimes we’d chat, joke around and laugh about the latest and greatest of our personal lives. Sometimes we’d look out the windows to check out the newest billboards or simply see the lives of others pass us by.
Suddenly, an idea! A solution! An answer! Light bulbs flicker its brightest in the lull of the downtime. Remember the adage that one gets their best ideas in the shower? This rings true for me as truly my best ideas come to be in the sensuality of the daily shower. The washing away of the remains of the day to be scrubbed clean, fresh anew, to make way for more to come. After the deluge of the monsoon, the sun shines bright and the seeds planted climb its way out of the dirt.
If I went on speeds of a mile a minute all day, everyday, filling in downtimes to embody the best case study of productivity and time management, there is absolutely no way to catch a breath, more so produce something creatively worthwhile outside the sphere of basic survival. That dodging of a bullet or the climbing a tree to escape a ravenous bear. Time to recover was important, but has it completely faded away into the background of history, a nostalgia of the good ol’ days?
In Vedic astrology, Venus is one of the nine grahas or “planets” found in one’s chart. Shukra in Sanskrit. Sukar in Arabic, sugar in english, azucar in Spanish, sucre in French, zucchero in Italian, asukal in Tagalog. It is the sweetness of life - relationships, art, song, dance, beauty, luxury, wealth, romance and sex - and yet on, the extreme end, addiction to all these things and experiences. While these are the forces of life, too much of it can spell a death - the physical, mental, spiritual and metaphorical kind.
Time nowadays is a luxury, both a blessing and a boon. Who gets to afford it? How is it spent?
Often, my body feels this restless energy, not being able to sit down, scuttling around the apartment stopping midway on one task, then suddenly remembering another and starting that. A loop of punishing thoughts of unproductiveness, the beating drum of American capitalism - doing more to get more - on repeat in my head. This restlessness leads me to go on overdrive of multitasking. On the other end of the spectrum, there is also a grating restlessness in stillness, in doing nothing over stretches of time.
A tiny voice resists, persists that this is not the way. That this is not the beat I march to or with.
We now live in an illusion, fooling ourselves that everything happens with a simple swipe. Because of this ease and that desire for more, instead of actually taking the time off, we are driven to add more things to our plate, filling our daily calendars, to-do lists to the maximum. Everything that was once not within reach of our fingertips, now is. You can do everything on technology packed smart phones, super computers are glued to our hands coupled with the ubiquitous and more accessible costs of internet connection.
Taking a breather seems to be frowned upon because with technology, there are supposedly no more excuses not to do, do, do. Are we not allowed to exhale anymore? Are we not allowed to take leisure in enjoying a good meal and conversation with our family, friends and colleagues in the middle of a work day? Are we not allowed to sit on a bench, under the shade of the swaying branches of the oak trees? Are we not allowed to watch the world pass you by in a moment of stillness? Are we not allowed to take time?
Were they really excuses or simply life? Because taking time is part of life. It is simply nature that is necessary to nurture. Taking time in bite sized portions, scattered throughout the day, week, months and years is nature taking its course. One cannot exist without the other. Time is the necessary nurture of being humans on this earth. Is it not time to give ourselves permission to just be?
What I’m Watching:
I am a wreck after finishing “Fleishman Is In Trouble.” Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes, Lizzie Kaplan and Adrian Brody. It is a story of a marriage, now divorce unraveling as the wife disappears one day abandoning her motherly duties to her children. But there is a larger story to it, one of crossing middle age, the contemplation of youth, the intense desire to feel life and purpose. I yearn to discuss this with someone else, so if you’ve watched the mini series, PLEASE MESSAGE ME. LOL.
If you’d like to read more about tarot cards and their meanings, head on over to what I’ve written below:
Major Arcana
Minor Arcana