Yesterday Juvenal visited my literature class. The students had read two very challenging poems ("Dickinson College" and "El bosque de Homero") in addition to the long essay/note that accompanies the latter poem, published earlier this year in the collection Cielo de septiembre, which I probably wrote of briefly in one of the early blog entries. In any case, the class was excellent and the students had some interesting questions. Juvenal spoke at length about the passage of time, about memory, and the ways in which time affects our sense of self. This morning, another crisp, beautiful day in Malaga, I'm feeling o.k. with time. No anguish. Today's the deal. In some respects I suspect the ways in which humans think about time are quite constant over time, no pun intended, but I also believe technological progress impacts our ability to consider time in new ways, or, at the least, with new metaphors. We talked about this some yesterday in discussing travel. Ulysses had quite an adventure there, getting back to Ithaca. Twenty years! Today I could be at the airport in less than twenty minutes and then hop on a plane and be in New York this afternoon! And it keeps evolving: last night we had another odd, multiple party video/text chat. Some family reunion: Cristina on screen from Ithaca, Asun and Daniel on screen from San Sebastian, Alma texting from work in Ithaca, Daniela on the cell phone from Madrid, and me on screen from Malaga. I had Daniela on the speaker phone so she could talk to everyone except Alma, who could at least participate with text messages. Crazy! The time needed to overcome physical separation is greatly reduced and even when we are physically separated, we can still communicate in real time. But it's not all good: sometimes we can feel overwhelmed by the speed of contemporary life. So when I'm waiting in line for something here (post office, supermarket...) and start to get impatient, I should immediately slow down and enjoy the opportunity to just wait. Usually I do, but sometimes I fear I let my blood pressure rise a point or two before I stop myself. I'm working on it. (See April 28th entry for more on time.) And now it's Time to go: the clock doesn't stop. Got to meet Julio Neira for coffee.
11.14.2008
Time
Yesterday Juvenal visited my literature class. The students had read two very challenging poems ("Dickinson College" and "El bosque de Homero") in addition to the long essay/note that accompanies the latter poem, published earlier this year in the collection Cielo de septiembre, which I probably wrote of briefly in one of the early blog entries. In any case, the class was excellent and the students had some interesting questions. Juvenal spoke at length about the passage of time, about memory, and the ways in which time affects our sense of self. This morning, another crisp, beautiful day in Malaga, I'm feeling o.k. with time. No anguish. Today's the deal. In some respects I suspect the ways in which humans think about time are quite constant over time, no pun intended, but I also believe technological progress impacts our ability to consider time in new ways, or, at the least, with new metaphors. We talked about this some yesterday in discussing travel. Ulysses had quite an adventure there, getting back to Ithaca. Twenty years! Today I could be at the airport in less than twenty minutes and then hop on a plane and be in New York this afternoon! And it keeps evolving: last night we had another odd, multiple party video/text chat. Some family reunion: Cristina on screen from Ithaca, Asun and Daniel on screen from San Sebastian, Alma texting from work in Ithaca, Daniela on the cell phone from Madrid, and me on screen from Malaga. I had Daniela on the speaker phone so she could talk to everyone except Alma, who could at least participate with text messages. Crazy! The time needed to overcome physical separation is greatly reduced and even when we are physically separated, we can still communicate in real time. But it's not all good: sometimes we can feel overwhelmed by the speed of contemporary life. So when I'm waiting in line for something here (post office, supermarket...) and start to get impatient, I should immediately slow down and enjoy the opportunity to just wait. Usually I do, but sometimes I fear I let my blood pressure rise a point or two before I stop myself. I'm working on it. (See April 28th entry for more on time.) And now it's Time to go: the clock doesn't stop. Got to meet Julio Neira for coffee.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment