Archetype: Perfect Mother. Metal and petrified wood
I favor the sleep when you’re tired, eat when you’re hungry and draw on the walls of the cave lifestyle. However, some overachiever invented a sundial for their back yard and before the rest of us could blink, we have a Simon Says attached to our wrist, reminding us to stand up and live longer. Some artifacts suggest timekeeping is as old as the 30 thousand years old petrified base of the sculpture above. Humans came out of the primordial soup stuffing their planners with appointments as a way to establish productive superiority over their neighbors.
While we may have a craving for techno candy, our body and brain hasn't evolved much past the raise crops and tend flocks stage. Our soul short circuits when an artificial intelligence badgers us about everything from our bad mood to the room temperature. We struggle for balance while the gadgets run right over us. Until we make the space to be alone with our thoughts and feelings, sans the ever present devices, we won’t figure out where we want to go, let alone set a resolution to get us there. We lose confidence in our ability to determine our individual tempo and rely on external tools to manage our creative lives.
Circadian rhythms, the internal chronometer of our ancient ancestors, timed to the moon tides and sunrise, are functional in our 21st century bodies if we learn to hear them. The myth of the creative hedonist is giving way to healthy lifestyles. Research shows humans function better and are more productive when their activities are based in ritual and routine. Most humans share approximate rhythms, however, we need to pay attention to our discrete body and how we feel, then support our unique artistic tempo through the days, weeks and months of the calendar. We know our schedule works when we feel animated and able to pay attention to what totally rocks our socks.
At this juncture, Einstein would point out linear time is a false construct because everything and every plane exists concurrently. Past and Future is a simultaneous existence where time is no longer the absolute Newton proposed. I love Einstein. Time is flexible. We can bend whatever the Universe uses to pass the time to longer or shorter stretches than we logically think we have. As a result of recent experiments with neural connections and eye movement, scientists are on the way to confirming Einstein’s hypothesis and suggest we will succeed in bending time. In some ways, we already have when the past exists in our memory and the future captures our imagination while we sit here with our feet up in the present.
Next we’ll consider how to make the most of time. We’ll explore the rhythms of creative work, check out why our resolutions might be slipping and consider alternatives.