Time management

All that is not eternal is eternally out of date. (CS Lewis)

This folder is the culmination of about 6 months work. Most projects we do generate a folder like this (in corporate orange - hello), divided into sections such as hotels, speakers, exhibition, programme and anything else we're asked to get involved in. As a conference approaches, the Orange Folder steadily fills up with bits of paper as information becomes available and finalised documents replace draft versions of things. By the time the meeting starts it is a complete summary of the next few days of my life and I would be totally stranded without it. We have digital versions of everything - but I need a tangible thing to hold in my hands and flick through - because it's far easier and more comforting to be able to hold the information in both hands. The Orange Folder becomes the event Bible, and must be accessible all the time.

Then the conference takes place. Large volumes of people gather in one place. A flurry of activity ensues. Then everyone goes home again. And a really weird thing happens - the Orange Folder becomes redundant.

The care and attention it has previously enjoyed is withdrawn - practically overnight. It returns home to a cupboard in the office alongside other summaries of events gone by, all waiting patiently for a day when they might be selected from the shelf and referred to once more. The Orange Folder, fresh from duty is likely confused at this sudden abandonment: Why is no one picking me up to arrange and re-arrange my contents? What happened to all the flicking through me 10 times a day to access my secrets?! Are you honestly telling me NO ONE needs to know which symposia will be held in which room, when the sponsors can run through their slides or who is still to submit a travel claim? What about how many Gala dinner meals need to be vegetarian, pescatarian, halal or under no circumstances contain peanuts?? No, no no - don't shut the cupboard door...!

But of course, no one cares now. After the dinner's over, no one needs to know what the final numbers were (which, incidentally, 10% of people won't show up for and at least one person will spontaneously develop / abandon a vegetarian lifestyle because they've just seen the alternative at another table...).

Isn't that weird? How can something go from being indispensable to recyclable in a matter of days? Time is such a fickle thing.

Or is it MORE weird that I even think about this stuff - because the alternative would involve a realm of no past or future - only the all consuming now. A fluid existence not framed by the passing of days and weeks and years, but something beyond the boundaries of experience or vocabulary or imagination. A place where the Orange Folder is always important or isn't needed at all...

What if we lived in immortality, like the wormhole prophets in DS9? Having never experienced linear existence, they need the alien concept of 'time' explained to them - and even then consider the whole thing to be unstable, unpredictable and quite frankly rather bizarre ('You mean you value your ignorance of what is to come???').

I'm with the Wormhole Prophets.
And CS Lewis.
(Who, to be fair, was plagiarising St Peter)
But until then I'm working on the contents of the next Orange Folder.

But don’t forget this one thing, dear friends: To the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. (2 Peter 3:8)

Merry New Year x

Despite hailing from North of the border, I don’t like many things that are inherently associated with my homeland. Haggis. Whiskey. Rab C Nesbit. Deep-fried Mars bars. And New Year. (I’ve actually had my heritage questioned in the past because of these aversions). I also struggle to remember when Burns night is, which does not help.

The worst has to be New Year. I have always found this to be a depressing time. As a child this signifies the end of the festive season, next Christmas is positively a lifetime away and the only thing to look forward to is the possibility of snow/the school heating system packing up/any other unplanned occurrence which necessitates school closure for a few more days.


However, I can remember vividly when my New Year aversion plunged to new depths. I was 6 years old and had just worked out (all on my own) that just as the days of the week repeated themselves in an endless loop, so the months of the year also came round again in (slightly longer) endless cycles. I used this knowledge and understanding of the world and concluded that the years must likewise come round again eventually- at some point – if one waited long enough. I brightly enquired of my parents when it would be 1978 again, honestly expecting confirmation of my logic and an approximate timescale.

Instead I was told the devastating news that it would NEVER be 1978 again. Ever. 1978 was as good as dead. The year had come and gone (well- there were maybe 3 hours left) and the millions of moments, both good and bad that had collectively created it would never be repeated. Not even if we waited a  r e a l l y long time.

I was numb with shock. 1978 was almost over and would never be back again! The implications were just astounding: I would never have my 6th birthday again. I would never have Mrs Bonelli as my teacher (unless she moved up a class). I think I may have cried a little bit. I really liked Mrs Bonelli. (And it was WAY past my bedtime) The synapses whizzed across my brain as I processed this new information, and the significance it brought.

So time moves forwards.
Always.
And once you’re on the conveyor belt you stay on it until you die- getting older all the time.

This made no sense to me whatsoever. Even as I processed this, people were actively celebrating New Year and being all happy about 1978 being dead and gone forever –didn’t they know how this works for goodness sake??

Fwd 30+ years on... and I still love Love LOVE Christmas (the incarnation gets more and more wonderful and astounding to me every year. Why God, why? What a risk. What a de-motion. Seriously. But I SO love you for it…)

And I have come to accept and appreciate New Year, sharing many of them with some ace friends who tolerate all-nighters of pictionary, uno and wine. I understand why people celebrate. Family being together. Friendships. Reflection. Making plans. Looking forward to new things. Having a legitimate excuse for a bender. All that stuff.

I still don’t like it though and THINK it’s because I’m rebelling against the flow of time which is out of sync with my soul (I want heaven now!!) I could never have articulated it at 6 years old, but am sure I realised that day- I am not meant for this world.

‘If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main objective of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same.’ CS Lewis

PS. ‘He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart.’ (LOVE it…)

MERRY NEW YEAR people x