Two totally different topics: how a long work day is leading me to change my relationship to time; El Niño/storm vs sea myth.

The prospect of working eleven hours daily at a decent job is causing me to naturally want to “structure my time more intentionally/efficiently.” The vast majority of advice on time management is but the masturbatory hypocricy of charlatans. I don’t know what words to use for my instinct to rearrange how I act in time when busy, except those that are bastardized by the “success gurus.” It’s not that I’m against “wasting time” or being idle. That has been the dominant position for a long time, even if there are cultures and people who aren’t so callous about their time, who value leisure, the “dominant” cultures/people are heavy on the side of structuring time.

I have given advice to people about how to organize their time, but that’s been from the motivation of care rather than dogmatism. It is important for the voice of care to speak up with feedback, so that dogmatism and shame cannot take root. It is important that this voice of care is not saccharine or under an illusory form of kindness. Compassion is direct and intense by itself. It can give feedback that is rooted in love and human relationships, which triumph over the expectations and idealisms that we hold over ourselves or have absorbed from other people. It’s a tricky balance. There’s a black lady maternal energy that I aspire to as the alternate to a puritanical domineering father figure. Black lady mom energy is the only power strong enough to overcome the voices of tyranny in this world. I want to be able to do things that matter to me in the time that I’m not working. I also don’t want to be a workaholic. I want to enjoy myself while I’m working. That might the key difference between dogmatic time-management and holistic time-management: the desire to enjoy myself while working hard.

On a completely different note, I spent a few hours reading about El Niño after waking up around 4AM. I learned a lot. Now I’m thinking that the storm vs sea myth might have some roots in climate cycles and how they affect human civilization. I’m wondering if the Enuma Elish predates the Bronze Age Collapse. I’m wondering what the middle east/mediterranean look like in a strong El Niño year. Loving the earth sciences. I missed out on actual earth science my whole education. Or maybe I just wanted to delve into it myself. Meteorology, geology, botony, ornithology, ecology. Ah.


June 11, 2023
Gorda