An Unforgiving Notion of Time & Space

We're one week into August, and I am in Vancouver.It took me seven years to land on the West coast of Canada. Yet it feels like I just arrived in the country for the first time. Like the space between then and now was seven minutes, maybe seven months but certainly not seven years.

For me, time and space exist in unpopular fashion. Basically, I don’t think time exists. And space… well that’s relative. I’m certain clocks exist – they’re tangible – but time is a phenomenon. Someone thought up a theory, called it “time” and this is how we measure our existence.

The West of Canada is much more chill than the East. No one runs to catch the bus here and there is seemingly never a reason to speed up in a way that reminds me of island life. The thing about island life is that it’s not that people are less concerned with getting some place. It’s that there’s a subconscious understanding that there is no real place to get to. I’m not sure how much I care for this similarity to be honest, but I do think there’s value in pacing oneself.

It began to rise in my mind to investigate the nature of how we finally arrive to somewhere we’ve always intended to be. Why it couldn’t happen any sooner than it did and why you needed to be wherever you were before. It brought me to the present moment and the startling reminder that there is only now. You can lament the past or hurry into the future, but when you arrive there, it will still be right now.

I don’t have a strong grasp on time. My relationship with time and space is a tenuous attempt at flowing with life, that is probably just a play in the contraction and expansion of space. I suppose time is how we come to know what we’re capable of doing, and space is the arena we get to practice who we’re being. And the ever present now, is when we match our doing with our being to create our reality.

What is it about culture that requires us to function like machines most of the time? Machines lack rhythm, which is the antidote to capitalism. So, why is it that some places move like treadmills we cannot get off, and other times the treadmill is moving but we are unable to get on and keep the pace?

Find your natural rhythm.

What is it that keeps us stuck in the in-between space of not being able to sync our doing and being, ultimately allowing the ever-present now to stretch itself for an eternity? An eternity that shows up as “someday I’ll do this” and “in 10 years I’ll be ready for that”.

I’m not here to give answers Zoya, I only present this as an idea to be pondered. I wish only for you to sit and contemplate this in your own mind in your own way.

There’s this peculiar thing us humans do too, where we consider ourselves the results of our past. And we reduce the present moment to our suffering by way of longing, delaying, contracting, and making sweet friends with our guilt, shame, and not-enough-ness. Somewhere within us though, we seem to know when it’s time to put down those stories and step into a new one.

I would say that the totality of time and space, structure, and form, is how we have chosen at a very deep subconscious level, to come to know ourselves within created parameters that help to keep us safe. And so, if we are exploring our humanness through the notions of time and space, what if we considered this play an experiment in how quickly we can bring the doing and the being into unity, so we can step fully into the present and arrive at the places we’re meant to be. Not in seven years, but in seven months or seven minutes.

There’s a lot to unpack here Zoya, but what I’m asking you is what are you still saying you’re not ready for? Where is it you desire to be or to go but haven’t even begun to make plans? What constraints have you placed on yourself? And where are you still believing you’re not worthy?

Time and space are mechanisms to stretching our self-awareness.

So, this week Zoya, I want you to stretch and release and arrive at where you have always desired to be.

Be well,Z.