ain't nobody got time for that
The Savage Detectives, time perspectives, Chinatown, The Great Gatsby, Mexico, Phillip Zimbardo...
Here’s a useful way to understand what kind of relationship you have with time. And if you’re someone who mostly views time as this limited resource — as in time well spent, time management, don’t waste my time — you’ll want to stick around.
The idea comes from Roberto Bolaño and his epic novel The Savage Detectives, which takes place all across Europe and North America but is primarily set in Mexico City. At one point in the story, the character Ulises Lima disappears for two years in Nicaragua without a trace. When he mysteriously returns to Mexico City, a friend asks where he’d been. Like Charles Marlow in Heart of Darkness, or the conquistadors who searched for El Dorado, Ulises had been floating for 12 months down some mystic river, “where he’d found countless islands and outposts, although not all the islands were settled, and sometimes he thought he’d stay and live on one of them forever or that he’d die there.”
Anyway, this is the paragraph I want to highlight:
Of all the islands he’d visited, two stood out. The island of the past, he said, where the only time was past time and the inhabitants were bored and more or less happy, but where the weight of illusion was so great that the island sank a little deeper into the river every day. And the island of the future, where the only time was the future, and the inhabitants were planners and strivers, such strivers, said Ulises, that they were likely to end up devouring one another.
This passage makes me think about a lot of things. For one, about my hometown in Florida, an island literally sinking each day into the ocean from erosion; for another; about our current entertainment, how so many movies, TV shows, and social media feeds are nostalgia bait, or another sequel or reboot (Ghostbusters 17 anyone?). But it also makes me think about that moment in The Great Gatsby, when Gatsby implores Nick Carraway to help him win back Daisy Buchanan and he exclaims, “Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you can!”
At the same time, it makes me think about how ornery and defensive I can become when I don’t accomplish my goals on my personal timeline (wha! woe is me!), and about these Silicon Valley founders who swindled us with visions of a tech utopia, only to reveal themselves over time as our era’s most ruthless and cunning robber barrons. More than anything, it makes me think about that powerful scene in Chinatown, when JJ Gittes confronts Noah Cross about stealing water from the people of Los Angeles (a true story, fyi), and he asks Cross, a man worth more than $10 million in 1937 dollars, why are you doing it, how much better can you eat, what could you buy that you can’t already afford, and Cross responds, “The future, Mr. Gittes! The future!”
Ancient wisdom—the Stoics, the Buddha, Henry David Thoreau—urges us to live in the present, to embrace the current moment. Authors throughout the centuries tell us to do the same. “Always hold fast to the present,” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe says. “Every situation, indeed every moment, is of infinite value, for it is the representative of a whole eternity.” Or as the contemporary poet Ocean Vuong writes, “In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly.”
Yes, time is a resource. But it’s also a state of mind. There are years I squandered obsessing over how someone had hurt me in the past, or wishing life could go back to the way things were. I’ve also wasted plenty of time worrying about the future of the world (global warming! dwindling natural resources! Russia, China, Trump!), or was so busy chasing after my vision of the future that I missed out on obvious opportunities and good times available in the here and now.
On an individual level, we understand how living in the past, present, or future can affect us. But where this gets super interesting is how this extrapolates to entire cultures and countries. For example, you may be familiar with the notion of “island time.” Have you ever wondered why that’s a thing?
According to the psychologist Philip Zimbardo (the man behind the Stanford Prison Experiment), we can experience time through six different “time perspectives,” divided equally between the past, present, and future. Based on his research, people who live closer to the equator tend to embody what he calls a “present hedonistic” view of time — i.e. you live more in the moment, focus more on pleasure now, worry about the consequences later. And “island time” exists for these people because every day is pretty much the same. It’s always warm and sunny. You eat similar food each day. You hang with the same friends and family (an island can fit only so many people!).
Why worry about being on time then or planning for the future? Tomorrow is today is yesterday! So when you visit an island resort, and experience a wave of relief, one strong explanation why is you’re just changing time perspectives.
And that ability to change time perspectives can produce incredible dividends. The major advantage that children of wealthy families have, Zimbardo argues, is the ability to trust in the future. That trust derives from firsthand observation in the power of compound interest. At some point in the past, their parents invested in the family’s future with time (creating assets or building a business), money (stocks, real estate, ownership, etc.), or attention (learning a craft or searching for opportunities in a market). As a result, their present reality is pretty great. And if they come from wise wealth, i.e. the heads of household continue to invest in this way, they see again and again how living in the future pays off. That example is insanely valuable! More valuable, I’d suggest, than all the luxury comforts, exotic vacations, and private tutors wealth can afford.
Speaking from experience, a major pain living paycheck to paycheck is a general stuckedness in the present. You barely have the time to consider anything beyond surviving to the next moment and then the next. Any moment of relief you want to give into momentary pleasure. Not only do you miss the potential of the future living this way, you also forget to consider your past, what wisdom is hidden there, what makes you unique and stand out compared to others. At one point in Savage Detectives, a Los Angeles nurse originally from Mexico City is asked when’s the last time she’s visited Mexico. “Too long, she said, I don’t have the money to be nostalgic.”
We have to understand this as one of the true privileges money can buy — space to reflect and learn from the past, trust that our vision for the future can one day become reality. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but why do you think they’re called trust funds?
Ultimately, that’s why I love this passage from Bolaño. It’s such a helpful metaphor for navigating time. I don’t believe only living in the moment is the solution. For the most part, yes, I want to exist floating down the river of the present, always changing, in constant motion. But with occasion, I want to stop and visit the islands of the past and the future. Who knows what buried treasure lies there?