Alain de Boton
John Armstrong, British writer and philosopher explores the ideas within his book 'How To Worry Less About Money' one of The School of Life's new guides for everyday living. This was filmed at the TSOL LIVE tour in May 2012.
Pretty much every Saturday afternoon, as a thumb rule, I spend time with Kuldeep Datay, my psychologist. It’s a routine now I’ve followed religiously for a little over four years. Contrary to what most people believe, psychologists aren’t always intended to “cure” you of some mental illness. They’re trained to listen and offer a perspective that may not have occurred to you. To that extent, if you think expensive “Life Coaches” that CEOs have on their side par for the course, psychologists are for the laity like me.
That out of the way, for far too long, productivity is a theme I’ve been obsessed with. Rarely does my day end without my asking a few questions: What have I accomplished today? What remains unaccomplished? How could I have done things better? What do I intend to achieve tomorrow? What will the outcome of all of these be a week down the line? How well do you think can you execute it? And when it’s time to go, what metrics will you use to measure your life?
To do all of these, I deploy tools of various kinds, mental models and gadgets—most of which I have touched upon at various points in this series.
There was this one point in time I thought Timothy Ferris and his best sellers like The 4-Hour Work Week and The 4-Hour Body sacred texts of some kind. Fortunately, my infatuation with Ferris faded and I found solace instead in Alain de Boton—whom I maintain is a deeper thinker.
The reason I bring this up is because every weekend for a while now, my conversations with Kuldeep have been around around how can I get better and faster. “Tell me Kuldeep, how can I be more productive?” I insist of him. If I were him, I suspect I’d be exasperated with me.
But Kuldeep is a gentle kind of soul. And each time I bring the subject up, he asks “Why?”
My answer to that is pretty much a stock one. “There is so much to be done. And there is only so much we can accomplish during our productive years. I need to get all of it done, without compromising.”
To which Kuldeep’s stock response, smile intact, is inevitably, “Why?”
And my, by now clichéd answer is, “I’m running out of time Kuldeep.”
This routine later, often times the both of us then get into the nature of time itself. Is it the fear of mortality why the likes of me obsess over time? Is `running out of time’ why I don’t have it in me to pause and appreciate the moments I live in? What does time mean in the overall scheme of things?
Very recently I stumbled across a post on the Farnam Street (a blog I insist everybody bookmark and visit often for the wisdom it carries). The post drew my attention to a book by Alan Lightman, a physicist, whose many works include one called Einstein’s Dreams. It is a work of fiction and has nothing to do with physics or Einstein. To that extent, it isn’t intimidating.
Lightman imagines himself in Einstein’s shoes and wonders what kind of dreams will a man working on the nature of time have. To that extent, it is a deeply philosophical read. After flipping through a few pages in it on Amazon, I promptly purchased the book on my Kindle.
Shane Parrish, who curates the content on Farnam Street sums up the questions the book raises: “What if we knew when our time would end? What if there is no cause and effect to our actions? What if there was no past? No future? If we could freeze a moment in time, what moment would we choose? And most critically, are we spending our finite allotment of time on this earth wisely?”
To answer that question, Parrish points out to one of the dreams described in the book. Two kinds of people exist—those who like in the “Now”. And those in live in the “Later”.
“The Nows note that with infinite lives, they can do all they can imagine…Each person will be a lawyer, a bricklayer, a writer, an accountant, a painter, a physician, a farmer. The Nows are constantly reading new books, studying new trades, new languages. In order to taste the infinities of life, they begin early and never go slowly…They are the owners of the cafés, the college professors, the doctors and nurses, the politicians, the people who rock their legs constantly whenever they sit down.”
“The Laters reason that there is no hurry to begin their classes at university, to learn a second language, to read Voltaire or Newton, to seek a promotion in their jobs, to fall in love, to raise a family. For all these things, there is an infinite span of time. In endless time, all things can be accomplished. Thus all things can wait. Indeed, hasty actions breed mistakes…The Laters sit in cafés sipping coffee and discussing the possibilities of life.”
Most people fall into one of these categories. After expending my energies on what kind of a person I am, it occurred I am, unambiguously a “Now” person. That is why I need to be on the move all of the time. So when I look into myself, it isn’t mortality that I am afraid of. I am afraid of “missing out” on all of what is possible.
When I think of it, my argument that I am mortal and need to do all of what is possible in the limited time I have, is a facile one. A pretense, or machismo, to prove to myself I am not afraid of death. And that I will beat death by accomplishing all of what I have set my eyes on.
As for the “Laters”, I confess I don’t understand them. In an earlier avatar, while in college at the campus on St Xaviers, I suspect I was a Later. But I cannot identify with that part of me anymore. Something changed when I got into the workforce. I cannot be with them either. If they don’t bore me to death, death by caffeine will actually get to me.
The problem with “Laters”, Lightman points out, are those stuck in time. They think of the days gone by and weep about what could have been. If not that, they imagine a future where all things will be beautiful. The irony is that both the Nows and the Laters are unhappy. So what gives?
Much thinking through later, the import of what Kuldeep has been trying to tell me fell into place. There is a fine distinction between “living in the now” and “living in the moment”.
What stops me from catching the import of a moment? Why am I obsessed with doing something here and now so I can assure myself I’ve been productive at the end of the day? Why do my Sunday evenings begin with creating a To-Do list for the week that lies ahead? Why does every evening end with ruthless reviews that inflict brutality to push my boundaries? Why the monthly and quarterly reviews with myself to measure “personal progress”? Why the obsession with losing out?
On the back of Kuldeep’s gentle goading and much effort later, I’ve finally come around to believe I am not the most important person in the world. That it is okay to turn my phone off past a certain hour. I’m now an early bird who is up by 4:30 am on the outside. I take my time to brew two mugs of masala chai and potter around.
It’s my time with me. Those hours aren’t used to check e-mails or get on social media. In fact, I’ve gotten off all social media, save Twitter that I use as a newsfeed. Friends still haven’t gotten around to that I am off Facebook and can’t figure why I don’t use instant messaging tools like WhatsApp. My chai in hand, I’ve begun to enjoy staring out of the window into the early morning hours.
Then there are days I walk over to the chai vendor right outside where I live. I take great pleasure in his ramblings about how peaceful life is like at his little hamlet in a corner of Uttar Pradesh where his wife and he can make as much love as they want to with each other because time never ends. “Sex karte hai hum sirji, din raat” he says often as we exchange some bawdy humor.
Chai done, a meditation app called Headspace has begun to embed itself into my morning routine. Created by a man called Andy Puddicombe his voice guides users through the routine. What stared out as an exercise in monotony is now transforming into awareness of the self.
I admit now these are the best hours of the day. But that is not to suggest I have changed. I still have a long way to go. Because as the exigencies of the day take over, whatever it is that transpired in the morning is shoved into the boondocks.
Kuldeep has been pushing me to incorporate newer activities into my life. Much like I’m discovering what joy mediation can infuse, why ought I not wander into more unchartered territory? I don’t know to play a musical instrument. What stops me from spending an hour of my time each day on learning to play something?
For that matter, in spite of having two daughters whom I love hopelessly, I don’t know have a clue what is playing at the back of their minds. What if I were to take an hour out each day, just that I may be with them, and listen to the concerns of a 9-year old and a 3-year old?
Each time I’ve done that, I find myself in a world I now remember nothing about. “Can you come and help me beat Utkarsh up dada?” asks Nayantara.
“Why?”
“Boys think they’re better than girls and he tells me he can beat me up anytime.”
I’m no Gandhian. So it gives me joy to plot with her on what it takes to take on a boy naturally built to be stronger than a girl her age. And it fills me with perverse pleasure when I pretend to accidentally whack him on the head after which Nayantara and I high five each other.
I can’t begin to describe what it is like to debate with Anugraha what a signature is. I know of it only as a set of inimitable initials unique to each one of us. She insists it ought to be a pink star. We debate endlessly—until she tires, tugs my hair in exasperation, gives up, and asks of me to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star that she may sleep on my shoulders.
Shane’s post on Farnam Street and a line he picked from there compelled me to go back to go back and re-read Seneca: “How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live. What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained!”
Allow me sign out with a quote by great Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, that is at once amusing, deeply philosophical and puts into perspective why every moment matters with forceful vehemence: “Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died. And the same thing happened to them both.”
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