Time is Water

Time spent outside of productivity is cast as wasted or squandered.

I want to imagine with you a timeline where slow time is beautiful. I want a timeline that is blurrier and fuzzier than the linear arrow of time that I’ve been taught is the best and only way.

I’d like to imagine a space where time is treated like we are gardens rather than machines - where time is attuned to our individual needs and given consistently, given softly, given with care.

I’ve been thinking about the ways that capitalism organizes time. Notice its undercurrents in language: “How are you spending your time?” “Don’t waste your time.” “Let’s save time and go this way.”

If time is water then small actions reverberate - sometimes to distances I cannot see, maybe to a generation that I won’t meet.

how shock is shared but nothing is done from it, how time can feel like a rubber band that in moments of tension is stretched out of place and snaps right back to its regular business-as-usual form.

Marginalized people are criminalized for spending time outside of gaining capital

It is in our best interest to question the metronome of capitalism and the ways it arranges time, both structurally and interpersonally. It’s in our best interest to study the alternative clocks that exist. It’s in our best interest to offer curiosity around ways we can construct our own clocks.

In a western culture that’s obsessed with fast time, quick turnarounds and immediate results, can you and I refuse? Can we slow down?