Manufactured Time & Infinite Time

Man made time – man manufactured time -- by counting tallies etched in stone and examining the solar and lunar phases, thousands of years ago. The ancient Mayans and Aztecs used advanced astronomy towers to accurately use the sun (which, due to physics) reliably showed the source of time it took for earth to complete one revolution in the solar system. Because of Newton's first law: An object in motion, stays in motion; and an object at rest, stays at rest" the earth, with no friction in space, has constant inertia, providing an adequate source of time, making it a reliable reference for our man-made calendar. All fine and dandy; all should be nothing new. What’s interesting, however, is that anything could have been used for a "clock" -- it could've been flower blooming patterns: when a certain flower blooms, it would be day, when it folds close that would be night, etc. We must learn to associate our sense of time with the efforts used in determining the nature, or the classification, of time.

Determining the categorization of time is best accomplished by identifying finite versus infinite time. James Carse writes, “Power is a concept that belongs only in finite play. But power is not properly measurable until the game is complete” (Carse 28; “Finite and Infinite Games”). In reference to the measurability of power, Carse, of course refers to a situation where an underdog component can suddenly “come back” in the end of a game: so a game mus be finished before the metric of power can be applied. However, “power is contradictory, and theatrical” (Carse 29). Power is an artifice; a sham. Power doesn’t exist! It doesn’t exist in infinite play and therefore the expansive thinker, the infinite player, completely disregards power concepts or goals. Winners never get distracted by the illusion of power.

Now, of course, the winner doesn’t disregard time in a setting where timeliness is a crucial element of success. However, the infinite winners recognize and understand that power is a time-bound artifice that should never be a goal or a focus of anything. To understand the nature of a man-made structure of time, examine what is crucial and connected to you.

What is important to us? The man-made structured interval of time? Or embracing time based on its "mood". Does it feel like slow-time and "fast-time"? How does the sentient experience feel? This is not saying that time doesn't exist, but just illustrates that time could quickly be illustrated as something that provokes more than tic-tocks of a clock or pages turned on a calendar-based planner. Our sense of time should use calendars as reference frames, but these conduits for "evaluating time" shouldn't limit our feelings, the sensations of the time’s mood. Man-made time should simply be a container to associate our sense of place, but the emotional emphasis of time should authentically embrace the milieu of time 100%. After all, if we simply examine time as a source of tallies, counters, and another 365 days, we deny ourselves the right to fully feel each day’s moments. Time and decisions are all we have to start with to produce emotions, journeys, situations, and outcomes. If we examine and interact with our time as if it were a sterile, linear, environment quantifying it with notches on a wall or measuring it like you would numbers on an abacus (where you simply shift over spherical markers on a wire like days on a calendar) we prevent spiritual growth. Engage spiritual understanding and growth by heeding finite, man-made time, but recognizing that the true essence is in the infinite time experience.

Spiritual growth can exist in structure, but not within confinements. Structure can help growth in many ways, but the primary method of enunciating ourselves to create a new structure is by examining, sometimes destroying, and then rebuilding our current structure.