27-8-96
The safest way to approach the dimension of time is to deal with it in the daily flow of life.
Its function, as perceived by each society, is the expression of every era and at the same time the measure that defines the nature of pursuits and the quality of works.
The approach to time by today's Western society is based on an axiom according to which humans escape from something to catch up with something else, without knowing either, and without accepting that both are unknown to them. This automatically generates an acceleration, which prevents the perception of life as a whole (with a beginning, middle, and end) and leads to a linear evolution with an increasing pace and multiple demands—an evolution that does not obey balances but only dynamics.
Our inability to control time, that is, to stop it, generates the need (and anxiety) to exploit it, with speed as the weapon and accumulation as the goal, which in turn lead to the worship of convenience, the acceptance of superficiality, the avoidance of persistence, the fear of deepening, and the glorification of productivity.
Zapping, a mode of thought and social behavior, forces us to move to the next act before completing the previous one, even if the latter is accompanied by pleasure. Without realizing that speed not only leads us to a pleasure but just as quickly takes us away from another. Time is no longer an ally of our pleasures. Time is now present to remind us that it is running out, not that it endures.
Art has forgotten the craftsman and his time-consuming devotion. Science produces results without reflecting on the means and purposes. Education is captive to information, forgetting that its role is to generate thought, not to store data. And all this because time is no longer a source of wisdom but a dark threat.
Perhaps we need to allow philosophical reflection to define the relevance of everyday time again. To accept that speed and quantity cannot be values, since whatever we achieve, however quickly we achieve it, will be infinitely little compared to time. To exploit the scandal of time to give quality and content to life. Finally, to accept that time is here to allow us to live and that, consequently, we cannot live against it.
Plato Rivellis