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I would be happy to share this with my friends . They are quite aware of my time challenge. Anytime I have an appointment at a specific time, I’m in trouble . I insist on ‘ giving myself enough time ‘ to get there promptly. It doesn’t usually get too precise, in my thought process. When I’m aware that I have someplace to be at a set time. My mind becomes very muddy in terms of what I’ll do in the time leading up to departure.

I don’t have a good sense of ‘how long things take’. Inevitably my choice will be to read something . Usually as my departure time encroaches , I am always surprised by how much I have to do to get ready. I’m always on the edge of my designated leave time. So the angst I insist on feeling is apparently something I need to feel .

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Problem is, human lifespan has a time limit. In college, I had a poster, quote from Satchel Paige: "Sometimes I sets and thinks; Sometimes I just sets." Funny how that spoke to me way back then. I dare say I am exceptional at "integrating ideas from wildly unrelated disciplines." But what that looks like from the outside is "just setting."

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The piece reminds me of the ideas I learned about the Greek philosopher’s description of time as chronos (χρόνος) and kairos (καιρός). Chronos is sequential time, which at the time of the Greek philosophers would have represented the movements of the celestial bodies and the seasons. Kairos is about the right time with an etymology tracing back to ideas like when an arrow can be shot to achieve maximum penetration of its target.

Once can see farmer vs. hunter in these two ideas. The farmer is most concerned about seasons and the sequences of activities that must take place to plant and harvest a crop each cycle. The hunter is more concerned about the right time to find prey.

A farmer or chronos individual could more easily adapt to the rhythms of industry with its daily, weekly, monthly, and annual cycles. In this environment, the hunter would be lost. The hunter’s productivity would be best sporadic and not what is needed for the industrial setting.

I have seen this different time play out in the sub-cultures in a large corporation. Accountants are generally farmers with monthly, quarterly, and annual “cycles.” Sales departments and customer service folks often are populated by those who like the daily challenges of needing to match the right solution to the right customer at the right time.

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