Before Stephen Covey, there was Charlie Hobbs. And before audio streaming, and even before CDs, there were cassette tapes. I was dialed into the notion of managing time as a young professional, with Charlie Hobbs' excellent advise. Thank you Charlie Hobbs and thank you to my mentor for lending that set of cassettes to me!
I've not thought much about time since then, other than putting to best use. Nor had I thought about the overall arc of time over our life span.
Until I heard Tom Cole speak this week. Tom Cole is the Director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Humanities at University of Texas. He has a wonderful background in history and philosophy and is both an author and a documentarian.
Tom shared a wonderful series of vignettes on how society has framed the human life span over the eras.
Gauguin
This Gauguin painting is titled: Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? It is displayed in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I have walked by it several times and never realized that when you look at the painting from right to left - you see the circle of life of a woman from a baby, through adulthood through end of life. There is even more symbolism and allegory on the upper left of the painting.
Life Cycle of Humans
Since pre-industrial times our society has depicted what stages of full life of an individual could be.
It is worth noting all these images show a peak mid-life and then decline. But how do we live a full live across these life stages from beginning, especially to the end?
Imagination and Memory
On Wisdom
As we go through each of our life stages, do we acquire wisdom? What is wisdom anyway? I did not know this, but there is a whole body of psychology research being done on this topic. It is actually called Wisdom Research.
Wisdom is defined as sound action by applying experience, knowledge and judgment.
The wisdom researchers (who "measure" such things!!) described navigating life challenges as being a critical component of acquiring wisdom. Other factors that contribute to it include the ability to manage uncertainty, openness to new experiences, being able to reflect and having emotional sensitivity.
Velocitas Tempora
We know what velocity is and we know what tempo is. It turns out Velocitas Tempora in Latin means the swift passage of time. Our time.
Those of us that are lucky, have been taught to value time: use the day productively, prioritize and get results!
It is useful to take a step back and ask a broader question.
What does a 100 year life look like. How do we manage, not the 10 hours of the work day or the 20 hours over the weekend. But rather living our lives across all our life stages.
Like the sand in the hour glass, time will relentless move from the first half of life into our second half. We should use Gauguin's striking image to keep that entire life span in mind.
We probably don't want to chase wisdom or chase happiness. But we perhaps ought to be cognizant of the building blocks that contribute to those, such as:
- Being open to building new experiences
- To be able to reminisce and
- To work on pushing against the boundary of one's own self to valuing larger society in which we flourish.
We hopefully have a long enough life of love to live, so let me switch from Latin to Spanish and say Andale Andale Arriba Arriba!
I've not thought much about time since then, other than putting to best use. Nor had I thought about the overall arc of time over our life span.
Until I heard Tom Cole speak this week. Tom Cole is the Director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Humanities at University of Texas. He has a wonderful background in history and philosophy and is both an author and a documentarian.
Tom shared a wonderful series of vignettes on how society has framed the human life span over the eras.
Gauguin
This Gauguin painting is titled: Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? It is displayed in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I have walked by it several times and never realized that when you look at the painting from right to left - you see the circle of life of a woman from a baby, through adulthood through end of life. There is even more symbolism and allegory on the upper left of the painting.
Life Cycle of Humans
Since pre-industrial times our society has depicted what stages of full life of an individual could be.
It is worth noting all these images show a peak mid-life and then decline. But how do we live a full live across these life stages from beginning, especially to the end?
Imagination and Memory
The use of reminiscence as a proactively utilized tool to maintain cognitive and social functional skills. This was proposed by Robert Butler at Columbia University who won a Pulitzer Prize for his work.
The use of improvisational story telling that prioritizes imagination over memory. Ann Hastings is an artist and was recognized with the MacArthur Genius award for her work on TimeSlips.
As we go through each of our life stages, do we acquire wisdom? What is wisdom anyway? I did not know this, but there is a whole body of psychology research being done on this topic. It is actually called Wisdom Research.
Wisdom is defined as sound action by applying experience, knowledge and judgment.
The wisdom researchers (who "measure" such things!!) described navigating life challenges as being a critical component of acquiring wisdom. Other factors that contribute to it include the ability to manage uncertainty, openness to new experiences, being able to reflect and having emotional sensitivity.
But the wisdom researchers could not answer if gaining wisdom was the same as gaining happiness. For that, one had to chase down happiness researchers (oy!)
We know what velocity is and we know what tempo is. It turns out Velocitas Tempora in Latin means the swift passage of time. Our time.
Those of us that are lucky, have been taught to value time: use the day productively, prioritize and get results!
What does a 100 year life look like. How do we manage, not the 10 hours of the work day or the 20 hours over the weekend. But rather living our lives across all our life stages.
Like the sand in the hour glass, time will relentless move from the first half of life into our second half. We should use Gauguin's striking image to keep that entire life span in mind.
We probably don't want to chase wisdom or chase happiness. But we perhaps ought to be cognizant of the building blocks that contribute to those, such as:
- Being open to building new experiences
- To be able to reminisce and
- To work on pushing against the boundary of one's own self to valuing larger society in which we flourish.
We hopefully have a long enough life of love to live, so let me switch from Latin to Spanish and say Andale Andale Arriba Arriba!
10 comments:
Fabulous. And nice to have this reading on a beautiful Saturday morning.
Love it! The message of use your time well with compassion and wisdom is really resonating today. See you soon my friend!
Read it! Nice
LOVE this "blog.”
Four images are my favorites.
First is one of my “double portraits” (with which you are familiar!). If you can make it out, the rust face is taken from the very Gauguin painting you reference. Have always loved that painting… and most of Gauguin’s. (For no particular reason except visual composition, Betty Boop is overlaid.)
Part of why I use layers in many of my paintings is to show the passage of time… as pentimento or like strata in geology. Urban, commercial geology.
Next 3 photos are by my favorite artist of all time: the Norwegian, Edvarde Munch. All 3 are about passage of time. (As you can see, Munch was a little more focused on time vis-a-vis women than men.) I would add that legions of great artists have dealt with this subject, directly or symbolically. And why wouldn’t they… it’s a central theme of the human condition.
Peace… and thanks for your piece!
Wisdom researchers… and they’re not called gurus… who knew?
You have bought to the front a big debate that was raging in me.
I have been indifferent to continuous learning , the reason, y should I learn, irrespective of the field my thought was have we not learnt enough to live through this life of us.
This was the basis for me to avoid and shun the discussions especially about all the mystical stuff.
This reflection on Velocitas Tempora has opened up a new dimension, how do I spend the rest of life usefully.
Personally, I feel I have been a Good son to my parents, a good brother to my Sisters, a Good husband to my wife .
Literally I have done what is expected out of me to them. If at all if I owe anybody in my family it is only to my son as a responsible father and to complete that portion of my responsibility I have all the resources that would be needed including time.
Now comes the issue, then what do I do with my time and body for the rest of my life time in a way to keep me happy and engaged.
Well I am at this juncture and my search has just started. Will share more on my search as I tread on it.
Thank you for triggering this search .
This is fantastic.
The question of how we should spend hundred years of life is very profound.
Each has their own way of defining it. I do say that at least one must have a plan. If one allows life to simply drift, that life has no meaning.
Perfect food for thought for the holiday season - a season hopefully to reminisce, be grateful, become more wise and truly understand where one derives happiness from.
Thanks for sharing!
Hope to see you sometime soon!
Well written as usual.
Probably the wisdom of the wisdom researchers was not to assign that much importance to happiness
All said and done, either spiritual or scientific and rational one may be, the bottom line is to lead a meaningful, contented life which is, if not beneficial, atleast harmless to others around us.
This is beautifully composed! Thank you for sharing it. My Latin is quite weak but I shall now always remember Velocitas Tempora.
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