Time: Keeping - Daily Practice

Philosophy can only do so much in alleviating anxieties. In the long run, nothing beats the jitters like a relative sense of control over self and time.

And if we can’t stop time, then we might at least keep a watch*.

Big Clocks: Age Cycles

From longest timespan to smallest: 7000 years of human civilization. The Aquarian Age. Human life cycle. 10’000 hours of practice. Being stuck at a boring meeting.

Point is: If you see the big picture, the small stuff will stop sweating and stinking.

Medium Clocks: Annum Lex

• Imagine no more than five major objectives to achieve every quarter.
• The simpler the goals, the easier done.
• Imagine the year broken down into three-acts: 
1. First Act: Planning
2. Second Act: Application
3. Third Act: Revelations!
4. That extra act that nobody wants to talk about: For backup. And second-chances. And vacations.

Small Clocks: Monthly Calendars 

(The smaller the clock, the more obsessive I seem to be with timekeeping.)

I made a 2015 calendar that shows the Jawi, Gregorian, Hijri and Lunar calendars on a single page. Printed out all the months in A5 papers. Stuck it in my daily grimoire. Happiest Muslim Witch alive. 

Gregorian, Hijri, Day, Jawi Pasaran and Moon Calendar

What’s with the Lunar Calendar?

• Some habit cues are spread throughout the month.
• Writing is creative work.
• Creativity is in the domain of the Moon.
• Women follow a monthly cycle.
• Farmers, the Javanese, Wiccan and Muslims observe the Lunar Calendar.
• There is just too much lateral culture and tradition to disregard lunar energy effects.

As far as witching goes: 

• From the New Moon until Full-moon (waxing moon), I tend to produce fast and energetic writings.
• This blogging daily thing was started around the full-moon, when the creative energies were at their peak.
• From the Full-moon until the New Moon (waning moon period), my writings adopt a psychotic calmer tone.

Very Small Clocks: Timers

Once, I heard Tony Schwartz talk about the ultradian energy management, and then my brain broke forever.

I apply Schwartz’s Ultradian thingy in combo with the 30/30 Timer App.

Schwartz's method on 30/30

Notes on Timers:

• To differentiate the cues between Tick and Tock, don't use the same productivity timer for your down time. Use, for example, Ensō instead. 
• Or, if you're really good, don't use a timer at all.
• There’s only so much that a timer can do. It’s a timer. Its job is to ding and ring. Not motivate or compliment or punish you emotionally, intellectually or sarcastically.
• If you happen to still want to do this after three months of trial, you probably don’t need that much external help. 
• Likewise, if after a couple of weeks, the voices in your head are still dissatisfied, you probably need more help than a timer and productivity techniques. Hire a new choir. 
• Thou shall not overdo it. The productivity gurus and meditation teachers have talked about it, only your bosses will love you for it, when see your body screams it: Slow down, you overachieving fiend.
• Try the clocks from the biggest to the littlest. Try the quarter annum calendar. If, after a week, it still makes sense, break it down to monthly tasks. Then, if you’re brave, you might try the daily calendar, fill it in retrospect. Divide 24-hours into sleeps and naps and Schwartzes.

Off Topic:

• What a funny twist of language: Time is passing. Can’t save it, can’t multiply it. It’s going, going, gone. Except for those who believe, who can reclaim the time they spent in goodness. Except for those who remind and encourage each other to persevere in spending time on the true, worthwhile things.

Off Off-Topic:

• [I nicknamed my master the Timekeeper because he is the authority who keeps watch of the local azan times. Maybe the name bears more than one meaning, more than one side of his story.]
  
  • [Is that why they’re called the Watchers on the Wall? "The snowy stillness marks the near-absence of time, or the ultra-awareness of every minute passing in the monotonous white."]