deep time vs. linear time

how focus, depth, and activities of total absorption can take us into the elastic experience of deep time

time feels very different depending on what it is we do with it. can we really compare an hour on hold waiting for customer service — with an hour relishing the physical presence of someone you love? or, what about an hour playing a musical instrument, versus an hour of buying groceries?

we talk about this concept all the time, casually — how a day can feel like a week, and ten years can feel like a few days.

recently, as I spend all my days inside this mysterious Japanese house, turning inward to my daily practices, I’ve become more aware of how I shift between the experience of deep time and linear time. I will try to describe the qualities of each.

linear time is clock time

is it unfair to call this a “shallow” experience of time? to me, a good example of linear time is waiting for the subway, or waiting in line at a windowless mall— checking our phones, looking for distractions, scrolling through social media, reading and responding to emails, half-reading articles…

when I experience linear time, I’m aware of time passing. anytime you are trying to “kill” time or “pass time,” it is an experience of linear time. thus, all half-engaged activities and all distractions are the experience of linear time.

linear time feels like skimming the surface of the water — like a water bug.

deep time is diving into the ocean.

deep time is a place you go

when we are so deeply absorbed in an activity that time feels elastic — we say we lose track of time. the outside world / the environment / all distractions fall away, and nothing exists except what you are doing, here and now.

other people have described this state as flow (I have not read this book). to me, it feels like going deeper into the seed of each moment, disappearing into a wormhole — and emerging out the other end, hours later, as if having traveled to a different world.

all conventional measurements of time don’t apply here. does time always feel slower, or faster? I think time feels elastic — it can feel faster and slower, and you don’t know how it happens, but in the end all the moments add up. there is a rubato about time.

how to access deep time

I’m not sure it’s so much what I am doing, but how I am doing it. it is easier to slip into the experience of deep time while doing activities that require intense focus and depth — physical and creative practices: running, doing yoga, playing an instrument, dancing, writing, painting, pottery, making a book, exploring an idea. also, intensely moments of connectedness to the “other” — nature, another human being, a place.

(to me, dancing and playing music are the two most “frictionless” ways of experiencing deep time — perhaps because both activities take place only in the present moment, and are evanescent).

but if deep time is simply a quality of intense focus and presence — then you can go into deep time anywhere, while doing anything.

meditation is the practice of deep time that is accessible to us at any moment, for even just one moment. I can train myself to enter deep time almost immediately, just by being attentive to my body, the environment, the sounds, the sensations.

so, in this sense, deep time is always very near to us. we can be conscious about how we can play with the experience of deep time. what do we need in order to experience deep time? do we need to be away from our phones? can we find it in nearly every activity, including doing dishes? what about responding to emails? are there spaces that are in blatant contradiction to deep time? (social media!!!)

can we curate our lives to flow in a rhythm of experiencing deep time?

yes, I think so. you let me know what you discover.