(Ac)costing Time
BY ANDREW KACEY THOMAS
One of the things I find most interesting about a global pandemic is my awareness of time. I reflect on its nature, its effect on our lives, and whether it’s going too slow or too fast. Covid-19 has made me sit in quiet discomfort with time for months. I wanted to do something to discomfit time in return. This is a vindictive attempt.
(Ac)costing timeWhat is it worth [1]?
A question a lot of us ask ourselves on a daily basis, and sometimes, more honestly, what will this cost me? What will this item, this interaction, this moment of discomfort, deprivation, or distance cost [2]?
It seems a silly thing to ignore [3]. Everything is getting more expensive, time is money, don’t have any time, well… you get it.
Is it strange to anyone else that we describe a bad economy and when we’re not working as down time [4]? If you do nothing all the time you might get depressed, in the same way the economy does. People say invest in yourself [5]. Put the time in, with unspoken second sentence being: get money out. But everyone knows you spend time, and you know how much it sucks to waste it [6].
Free time seems a sick joke [7]. When time is money, leisure is costing you by the second [8]. Spend your time wisely and you can find opportunities others miss [9].
We often can’t spare the time, as if it wasn’t all we had. Volunteering, community building, and connecting take time [10]. If you look at the apparent scarcity these things really rob you blind [11].
Some people are taxing, others spend their time with you [12]. Parents invest in their kids, and divest themselves at 18, 25, or 30+ years. You know, whenever their amortization date is reached [13]. Children to their grandparents are reminders of time both spent and remaining [14].
Family time is precious [15]. If only for the investment it represents. Some steal moments, little fractions of time, just to spend it with the ones they love [16]. Stolen glances, stolen dances [17, 18]. People are hurt by a lack of time spent together, trapped in screens and desks but rarely take a second to understand why [19].
Where does the time go [20]? Everyone seems dazzled by it as if it put on its boots and walked away, strutting past to eyes agape amazed at its audacity. You make time, when you need to, for loved ones and those you care about even if you’re really just taking it from somewhere else. “They’re on borrowed time!” you justify to yourself as if your spent time granted them more [21, 22].
The cost is only really, truly apparent when they’re out of time [23, 24, 25]. A sort of sick arithmetic takes place of the times you spent together [26]. You mourn the moments and tally the hours [27, 28]. For those that spent the most time claim the greatest proportion of suffering.
A eulogy is often a chance to take account of one’s life through how they spent their time [29, 30]. Were they frugal, did they spend time carelessly, did they ever go broke? If so, did they ever really catch up?
No matter how you slice it, it seems we have a real lack of investment in the market of time [31]. Inflating work hours, communications demands, media and more has brought us to the edge of a crash, people don’t know how to spend their time [32]. But everyone knows they can’t lose it. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
I can save you some time and make this real efficient [33]; because I know your time is valuable [34].
What is it worth? What is my time worth? It is more precious than chains. Both gold and block, ducats, sterling, or green as what does any of that really mean [35]? If time is money then it is truly fiat, untied at any port, unburied in any soil, unburdened by any limitation, trade tariff, shipping fee or levy, brought forth into the world by people choosing to accept its value sobeit [36, 37]. But it doesn’t feel that way.
Money, a mere convenient substitute for value has, through the trick of usury, gained the power of a god, and the malignance of a devil upon society and so too has time, through the myth of scarcity, damned us all to constant productivity [38]. Like Sisyphus we push the boulder but we don’t learn to love it [39].
My time is the only thing I have in infinite quantity. Don’t get me wrong, I’m worried I’m wasting it. But I don’t want to be. Because I know how bad it feels to have someone not value my time.
I find myself wishing I had more of it, even as I scramble to decide what I will do with all I have left of it. I spend time and I jealously guard it. Like magic all things heal in time, all wrongs are righted in good time, but what of in bad time? They say solutions to our climate fears will come in time, but I wonder on whose time this tab comes due, is it me [40]? Is it you [41]? I am very aware that we monetize our time and don’t timetize our money [42]. You can’t buy time, but time buys many graces [43]. It seams like the edge starts to fray when time runs short, the starter pistol is long forgotten and to both sides I see frantic faces racing, chasing a moment more, just one more breath, push [44]! And I hope and I pray one more bounty, one more boom, always just a little bit of breathing room to keep me ahead of time [45]. What’s it worth to you [46]?
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Andrew Kacey Thomas (he/him) is a settler media studies, heritage humanities scholar and digital mixed media artist of performative memory in Treaty 7 territory. He is a lifelong Albertan who has worked in non-profit management and community building for heritage and community organizations, and is currently a Master of Arts candidate in Communication Studies at the University of Calgary.
Artwork by Andrew Kacey Thomas
