Time
Episode #0004
Intro / Outro 0:00
Monday Marinade with Mer 'n Nay. A recipe for your mind. Soak it up!
Naomi (Nay) 0:08
Let me start by telling a story, if you might. About a year ago to a year and a half ago, you blew my mind when we were very casually sitting around a pool in Los Angeles, and maybe we'd had a couple cocktails involved. And when you said what you what I'm about to say, I thought you were joking. And you said, "Time isn't real". And you shook my world. And I think I started to debate with you, but all the reasons why it was. And you were just very calm. And you just said, no, no. And you had a good answer for everything. So I'm still wrapping my head around this concept. And you sent me that wonderful book "Time Loops" that's helped me kind of like, get there, you know, but let's start by by why time isn't real. And why, why you firmly believe this?
Meredith (Mer) 0:57
Oh, my gosh.
Naomi (Nay) 1:02
I mean, is it isn't that the crux of this conversation is like, accepting that is not the foundation of it.
Meredith (Mer) 1:10
That is the I mean, so what's interesting, right, it's like, we live, like we experience. things, you know, like, we sort of experience a past, we anticipate a future. But like, these are all things we create with our mind, right? The only thing that's real is THIS moment right now. Right? And so feeling of I think that's a start. But I want you to say, also, like, what, like, what we were talking about time does not exist, like what like what most impacted you from that conversation?
Naomi (Nay) 2:13
Because I think you know, your product of your raising and your upbringing and your career and whatever. I think when we had that conversation, I was reading a lot about calendar blocking, or time blocking. And because I was struggling, as I was transitioning my career from corporate America type of lamps, you know, landscape where I was, I wasn't even scheduled someone else, I had an admin or someone on my team who would just be putting stuff on my calendar. And I do my best to wrap my head around. But I was always in, in this kind of defense mode, right? Like, I wasn't owning my day it was it's like, I had to go to this and because everyone needed me right for different things. And that's just, that's the nature of the role that I played. But then all of a sudden, I'm no longer in that environment. And I look at my calendar, and it's empty, and it's like, Oh, my goodness, I get to choose what I do with my day, I get to choose what to do with my time, which I don't think I had had that luxury since I was a child, Meredith. Because like, honestly, because we, we, especially when you're in a school environment, you're also scheduled and then you're working a part time job and this, there's someone else's, you're choosing those things, but those are finite periods. And, and so all of a sudden, I found myself wasting my day, in the sense that, you know, it would be two o'clock and I felt I didn't feel good. I felt unaccomplished. I felt like what have I done with my day today? And, you know, the basic chore list doesn't count, right, like taking a shower, brushing your teeth. Like, I wasn't recovering from some trauma where I needed, like, my primary purpose was like, keeping myself functioning, you know what I mean? So I, I literally had the luxury of an entire day open. And then I started realizing that you know, I needed to the opposite would happen, I would go on these projects, and I work on creative projects, wonderful things, very fulfilling things, or I would read something I had not had a chance to do for years, and I'll send them like, oh my gosh, I've been reading for three hours which is wonderful. And indulgent. But this is also the prime of my life. This is not what I want to be spending my time doing. Right? Like only so I was really in the throes of, of calendar blocking. There's a lot of you know, there's a lot of pop literature about it, you know, you can I don't even know that the Eyal there's an Israeli guy that talks about it's called in I think I think of the name of the book, but it was so basic. It's like okay, great. I'm gonna, I'm gonna I'm gonna get I'm gonna calendar block so and they go to the point where it's like schedule your wakeup, schedule your under your day, figure out there's time in between, and figure out what you want to get done. What's your purpose, what are your objectives, block it, and then all of a sudden, I'm doing that but then there's the sense of anxiety of like, oh my god, I wanted these things, but I don't have enough time to do it. So you're, you know, we had this conversation just when I was transitioning to that, and I had a full calendar that I had created, I had chosen of creative projects of startup business ideas of scheduling time with friend because I did the whole, like, you know, the whole matrix of what are the things I want to spend my time on relationship building, my family, my health, exercise, and you know, that's a that's a I did a very strategic assessment of okay, well, what are the pillars of how am I spend my time? Spiritual? Do I want to spend more time doing studying the Torah, which I did. You know, like, what are the things and then you block them, and all of a sudden, you've got a packed day. But also didn't feel great. It was too much. It was like, maybe overkill, right off the bat after having such an open space, I suppose. But then you come along, and you're like, it doesn't matter. None of this stuff is real. And I was like, I'm very confused. Right now I don't understand. I see different colored blocks in my calendar that are telling me these finite periods are very real, you know, and then, you know, the conversation we then had was around perception of time. You know, like, when you have an accident, you have a car accident, right? Time slows, and like a second can feel like, a minute or two minutes, right? Or if you're in flow and doing something you love. Time just blows by like how I've been, I've been painting for two hours, no way. But if you're waiting in line at the DMV, a minute feels like an hour, right? So that I can appreciate I can appreciate that time, and how time is perceived is relative and personal. But the thing I really struggled to wrap my head around, and I'm still toiling with a little bit is that it's more than that. It's yet something else. It's it's just just to see where I'm going with this. And I think,
Meredith (Mer) 6:58
yeah, okay, so I so it's like, it's interesting, right? So you're saying this, like, I have my calendar, I'm at the office, I got my calendar in front of me, right. And I think we have this false perception that time is like a container that you can fill up, right?
Naomi (Nay) 7:23
I mean, yes. 100% That is how I have been raised. Right, there's 24 hours in a day back-solve eight hours of sleep, back-solve out, you know, basic body maintenance, you got to shower, you got to eat, you got to eat or whatever. And then the rest is your playground.
Meredith (Mer) 7:37
Yeah, exactly. And I think and again, that's like not you know, I can Yeah, and I think we discussed this before, like, when you're really flow, right? When you're really free, you're gonna do...we don't. Okay, now, not in my feeling is that you're going to do the things that that needs to be done for, for life to continue. Even like unpleasant things, you know, like going and defending your parking ticket or whatever, or you're, I have to go do that. We're like, after, like, whatever, right. And I think that this idea that we could fill up, fill up our time, like, the more we're doing, the better it is, you know, we're gonna accomplish more is just like, all, just like these kinds of ideas that are that are misguided. And I think of like this artist that I used to study with Pat, and she had these beautiful, even my own painting practice is beautiful, like color field paintings like that. They would take like maybe like an two hour like what? No, a lot of time to do. It was but it was the quality of inspiration in that time, or the prep or whatever preparation like that, like every you know, right? It was everything that I come up to lead to that moment.
Naomi (Nay) 9:12
And that I agree with and that I'm 100% on board that time is not correlated to quality. Yeah, well, well, and I'm not talking about skill. So I'm talking about quality. I'm talking about creative quality, like in terms of an idea that you can execute, whether it's a painting or a piece of music or
Meredith (Mer) 9:33
even execution. Execution isn't I mean, the only thing that is that has an execution that's related to time is music, because that actually unfolds in time.
Naomi (Nay) 9:46
But then a line manager, you know, I worked in consumer products for many years, right? If you were to ask one of one of the production line managers, I would have worked with, you know, a line of run is 45 minutes and you're going to throughput you know, there's a certain throughput there. So that's that is linked to time. And obviously, the efficacy of the machinery and whatever, but like, that machine can output X number of widgets in X number of time. That's that, like, how do you explain?
Meredith (Mer) 10:12
No, you're right. I mean, that's, and that's like the material world. It's like, you know why music takes time? It's like, like, why, you know, when you make, lay, like, you know, like, in cooking, there are a lot of things like a lot of things that you can't speed up. It's like time, right? Or, you know, duration, right. I also think of this now in terms less than of times more in terms of like, in sequence, like, like, or in terms of ordering, like things need to happen after other things.
Naomi (Nay) 10:48
I agree with that. That's a new concept to me, by the way, I came across that about a year ago, that, and I guess it's not such a surprise, because I think we're learning that this multitasking habit that we've taken out of the last 15-20 years, it's not good, right? Like living life sequentially, and doing things one things at a time you get, you get more pleasure, more value. I think that's that's a different conversation, but that I'm completely on board with but but then maybe, what, what do you mean, then when you say that time isn't real? Or time? You know, what I mean? Like, what does that what does that really mean that like, in the example of a piece of music or a play unfolding? Or, like, what would you what does it mean? Or how do you define it, because maybe I just have never truly understood the way you've explained it. Because I also accept, like the, the concept, that's, that's, that's, you know, in that book, you sent me the Time Loops book... that I accept, I accept that, you know, we're simultaneously coexisting in different, you know, dimensions, and, you know, and maybe coming in and out of them and time, time can like the example of the woman who saw, had a conversation with her husband, and then had deja vu, and you know, that I can accept that. But like, when it comes down to like, a manufacturing line, and widgets coming down a conveyor belt, like, what, what is that?
Meredith (Mer) 12:15
I mean, I think it's a really good question. I mean, I think it's a really hard question to, to unpack. So, right, we're in this moment right now. And like, we have a memory that something happened before. And we sort of have an idea. And again, it goes back to sequences of like, certain things that need to happen in order for other things to happen. And in fact, I even had this exercise this morning, you know, I had a plan where my team was going to do, and I'm like, this deliverable we're going to do by the end of q3, and like, and the guy that was in charge of it would be like, Meredith. I don't know, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, trust me. I think it's gonna be this is fine. And it's like, you know, it's like the middle of q2. And end of q2, yeah. I'm looking at you. And I'm like, it's like, it's like, coming to the, it's like, it's like, the finishing line. And I'm like, You see, I'm like, This is so great. I was right. I mean, I just like being right.
Naomi (Nay) 13:23
It is very validating.
Meredith (Mer) 13:27
But there's and so that was about it. It's about time, in a way. Um, but it's also like like, your time, but like, calendar, like it's like calendar time, like, hours, minutes, seconds, like these things are like social constructions. Okay, on different cultures have different, like, why is a week, seven days? I mean, we've 24 hours in a day, because of this time going around the earth, mean, there. So, um, but like, what does it mean to have something done in a day? I mean, it's so I think, I think there's something about cycles, and about movement, and about processes like unfolding. And I think it's like, let's follow the process to see like, let's follow the process and see what goes, and maybe we can develop intuition about that. But I don't think that time. In this moment, right now, like there is no time and who knows if what has happened actually happened, you know, and who knows, if I don't have access to future activities, you know, it's like our brains are perceiving that time. That's right. Yeah,
Naomi (Nay) 15:01
it's like and that's that is, I think everyone can appreciate. You go to a, you go, you go to an event, a party, a kid's birthday party or something like that, right. And for one person, it's, it's, you know, it's a 90 minute event. And for one person, it was so enjoyable, you had the best time, you didn't even think about the time and then for someone else, it's like, oh, my gosh, this thing is dragging on, I can't wait for it to end because they are experiencing. So then some maybe isn't that it's relative to the moment that you're experiencing. And that, as opposed to thinking about it as a container, like, I have an Excel spreadsheet, or a calendar with X number of cells that represent minutes, or, you know, fit, you know, every every cell is 15 minutes, or 30 minutes, and I can block this much stuff into it. It's more about the feeling of so
Meredith (Mer) 16:00
I think it's about the feeling, but I think it's all about like, even if we think like things have their own way of unfolding. And I see what you're saying. And I think if we understood this better, we could probably play with it more. But it's like, even if you're a cook, or even if you're doing a production line, if you're doing like, you know, operations research or whatever, you know, not go according to your timeline for all kinds of reasons, right? Materials late or machine breaks down, right, you go really quick, there are all of these different events that happen. So
Naomi (Nay) 16:43
we also we also as there's, there's research on this, again, I'm blanking on the name of the author, that that we are optimists in how we judge time, especially when we are doing the work. So if you want to safely gauge how long something takes, like, triple it essentially like, it's like, oh, it's gonna take me an hour to write that paper, it's gonna take me an hour to do this activity. Because you've you visualize it in your mind, you've experienced the the, you've gone through all the steps in your brain, you've come to the end. But, you know, inevitably, you you haven't factored externalities, like you just said, like, well, maybe something's going to be delivered late you come and you know, all of a sudden, your child spikes a fever, you didn't plan for that, right? Like all the other unexpected environmental factors that you can't control. We have a really difficult time judging. Because we're optimists and we, we are able to put something together. I don't know if that's exactly the same. Well, too, it's more about time judgment. But
Meredith (Mer) 17:53
judgment, it's like, it's not, it's like we're trying to it's like we're trying to shoehorn something, right? Put something in a container? Yes, I guess you're
Naomi (Nay) 18:05
a great way to think about it.
Meredith (Mer) 18:08
Um, and I think you, I really don't think we have an understanding of really how time works. In my Lacanian Analysis. Like we do, like, I feel like there is something that happens, we jump for analysis. Very interesting. Yeah, there is no set time to our session. I mean, they're the one I have is really fascinating. There kind of is because we live in this capitalist society, and we have schedules, but like, theoretically, there should be no time limit to your session. And basically, what happens is you stop at a particular moment of the greatest where they're, like, have like the greatest energy or impact. And then, like, something happened with stopping there and unfolding of what happened in your, in the session, like over the coming days. And even like, in the analysis itself, it's not about it's not about like telling a story, like a narrative, which is very much about time. It's more about this associate, it's like Association. And, and, oh, you told the dream this way. And this session is other session, you told it a different way. It's like about like, sort of, it's about like change and or it's about like, all of these different possibilities that you're about how you're perceiving the world and perceiving and how you're describing it, and they all exist together.
Naomi (Nay) 19:51
I was just thinking about everything you're saying, you know, and I just I wonder if we didn't live the way we Did now meaning going to work on the factory schedule, right? Going to work going to school in certain timeframes. And of course, it's all it's linked to productivity and efficiency, and maximizing work output, right? Like, I understand all that. But if we didn't have that, I just wonder if we would experience all of this very differently. Like, for example, when you meditate, right, like, you have a very deep or we talked about doing some sort of artistic endeavor, you have a feeling of flow and, and in the same way that we were talking about awe last week, where, you know, we we are not able to necessarily appreciate, pushed up against it, I wonder if it's the same thing, it's like we are, so we're so entrenched in our container, that we don't even make room to appreciate that there's another way to experience life without the container. And then when you have it, you feel whole, you feel real, right?
Meredith (Mer) 21:02
I agree. And I kind of think it's like, you know, like, you have cultures, you know, they don't like, what is it? Like, there's no word for blue in Latin or something? I don't know. But I feel like it certain cultures, like don't have certain names for certain colors, right or, right. Like, there are things that we saw concepts for. And and then it makes it hard to think beyond those concepts. And I think that time is one of those. I think there's a lot of really interesting. Like, you look at, like the, there's so many things to talk about with regards to this. Because there are like a really, we are really all swimming in this. Conception of factory time. Yeah. world, but that's not there. But we, but there are examples of other other modes. Not so far from us. And then you can then, you know, look at like dream time, you know, like, I got this, I got a dream the other night, and you're like, how does that feel? And then you'd like and then and then to wake up and go back to the same dream? I mean, we do have sewer. I mean, any case, I think that I do think that there is a way for us. There is a sort of, we think it's real, but maybe it's not the only time we really know that's happening is right now, right?
Naomi (Nay) 22:44
Yeah, I think where it gets really real though, Meredith, is when I'm running late. And then my husband gets really upset with me. Like I can I tell him that time isn't real. And do you think that's gonna work?
Meredith (Mer) 22:56
I mean, at all? Look, I mean, when I when I like miss my train. Yeah, I know. That's a problem. Because it was because we're living in consensus reality.
Naomi (Nay) 23:07
Well, and listen, the key takeaway from this conversation what I'm taking away in terms of, well, how do you then you know, how do you make taking this information, the suspended disbelief or the acceptance of it, that what do you do with it so what I take away from it is create moments allow yourself moments in the day in your week to perceive the flow, the moment openly. That's what I'm taking away from this conversation is like we are in we are entrenched in a culture and a way of living and and it's likely not going to change and there's a lot of stress and anxiety around it, right? I mean, it really creates for me in any case, just a packed calendar calendar block creates so much anxiety for me because it's like ooh, all this stuff as opposed to going into a moment being like let's just see where see what see what we see and be what we be and go where we go. Right like it's that's just not how we live. But if you can allow yourself room for that. I think that's that's very valuable and whatever that is, whatever your personal scheduled spontaneity is, right a walk on the beach, painting, a session and Lacanian analysis like what right Don't you think I think?
Meredith (Mer) 24:29
like I yeah, I mean, I think it's like I think like look at if you look at your calendar, as like maybe just like these events that have to happen. And then it's like what is in your calendar is like events that have like kind of you have to make and like what's what is like feel like what's what's in the calendar is like a filling up, right? Because there's like a difference between like meeting like getting a train and or like meeting your husband and like, filling up time. Like I think there is a difference.
Naomi (Nay) 25:00
Yeah. And obligations that, you know, you should say no to, but you do because? Because you're supposed to, or you should, as opposed to, if you chose, yeah, there's definitely that.
Meredith (Mer) 25:14
So I mean, I don't I mean, I think it's just like, I mean, again, it's like, you know, you know, sitting with the idea, and then it works on you. You don't necessarily have to do anything, like maybe you'll start doing things differently, because you're like, wait a minute, you know, because they'll be thinking of this idea. Yeah.
Naomi (Nay) 25:30
I agree. And I think, you know, meditation, which is, I think a topic we should talk about, at some point, I think meditation, even if it's like 10 minutes every morning, or, you know, some sort of meditative activity, it's, it really helps you feel it for me in any case, feeling in control of this, meaning like, I am not shackled to this dogma. Like I can find. I can define time how it makes sense for me in my life. That's that's what I have found has been very helpful is meditation as well.
Meredith (Mer) 26:05
I think that's beautiful. I'd love to see let's let's, let's close the container of the container.
Naomi (Nay) 26:13
Speaking of which, it was lovely chatting with you as usual, Meredith. I love you. I love you too.
Meredith (Mer) 26:18
Bye
Intro / Outro 26:26
Did you enjoy this week's episode of Monday Marinade with Mer 'n Nay? If so, join us next week as we explore a new topic in our podcast, with the goal of helping you kickstart your week, have a better day and ultimately thrive. Every Monday Marinade is an opportunity to soak up new recipes for your mind. So you can unleash your greatness, ignite your inner fire and inspire. Till next week!
