If you could stop time for just 24 hours . . .
I don’t know, maybe it was reading comments from both Jules and Vivian yesterday about how they’re taking vacations from their blogs so they can catch up with reading and other matters, or maybe it’s because of the essay I read yesterday about how we give clocks and other timepieces WAY too much sway in our lives, when really we should just put them away for a good part of every day and just go with our natural flow, but it’s very much on my mind today what I would do if I could just stop time for 24 hours.
What would I do?
I know what I wouldn’t do: chores. If time stopped, I would not be using those extra hours to finally organize my shelves and clean out all the closets. I wouldn’t return phone calls or answer all my e-mails, either. Because the whole point of stopping time is that no one would even notice if I completely shirked my duties for a whole day and night. I could just be free, free, free.
I think I would read. I think I would have my own MotherReader-ish 24-hour book challenge, and I’d just sit there and catch up on as many books as I could. I think if time stopped I wouldn’t need to sleep, so I could just keep on reading without rest. Right now, with so many new books piled up on top of my already overwhelming TBR pile, I think reading would be the sweetest thing I could do for myself.
A few years ago I read an article about Bill Gates, and how twice every year he would take a Reading Week. He’d go off to some private hideaway, and bring a truckload of all the proposals his employees had made throughout the year about how to improve his products or create new ones, and he’d stock his mini-fridge with Dr. Pepper or something, and then just sit there for one solid week reading everything down to the last drop.
Doesn’t that sound amazing? A whole week when everyone knew not to bother you because you were turning off the phone, not checking your e-mail, and just reading.
A week might be too much to ask, but 24 hours could really help.
So that’s my wish for a full day of stopped time. What would any of you do?
Technorati Tags: Ultimate Time Management
July 14th, 2007 at 6:23 am
If I could stop time, I think I’d use my teleportation super power to visit Paris again. Or go to Sydney, ’cause I’ve never been. Or Rome. Maybe Morocco. Can I have more than one day?
And no time progression = no jet lag. I’m counting on that.
July 14th, 2007 at 7:29 am
If that day / that time were to be used for something personal and solitary, I would try to write a great deal in that window of time.
July 14th, 2007 at 7:34 am
Well, if the Big Kahuna decided to have a sense of humor that day and sent rain, it would be a reading day. But if the weather was even a BIT less wet (fog, for instance!) I would head out with the DSLR (with the three new lenses I would buy for it that would show up at my door instantly upon time stopping) and not come back until I filled up the 2 gig card.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Sara, you’ve taken it up to a whole new level if we’re going to add some travel fantasies in there. Shows you how small my thinking was. And I’m sure you’re right about the lack of jet lag–that must be a rule.
Little Willow, looks like you’re more the homebody like me. Hunker down and write away.
BJ, doesn’t that just sound lovely! And surely those three lenses would show up, then disappear again once time started again. Don’t know how, but it’s like the jet lag rule.
I’m going to stop time myself right now and go take the niece and nephew to see Harry Potter. Can’t think of a nicer way to use a Saturday afternoon–great company, great movie.
July 14th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
I’d definitely read.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I have so much I want to I’m almost afraid that stopping time wouldn’t be enough. I need to compartmentalize my various projects and assign them to genies.
I think that if I could be given the gift of not feeling guilty or anxious, I’d spend 24 hours doing nothing.
One thing I will say about time, at the risk of sounding all pseudo-zen-like, once I stopped wearing a watch and stopped paying attention to clocks time seemed to open up for me. I never realized how much I let clocks (and phones and other distractions) rule me until I decided I was in charge. My family finds it a little odd when I ignore the phone ringing but, as I remind them, just because it’s ringing doesn’t give the caller right to interrupt what I’m doing that moment.
All said, I, too, will be taking a vacation from blogging at the end of the month; I’ll be traveling in Europe and am looking forward to all that “down time” to recharge my batteries.
July 15th, 2007 at 6:25 am
Hey, David, welcome to the blog! You can be as zen as you like over here.
I admire you for ignoring both clocks and ringing phones–you are far more advanced than I am. But it’s true what you said, that just because someone else is calling, that doesn’t mean they get to interrupt you if you’re not willing. I need to learn that. You are my Yoda.
Adrienne, it does sound awfully nice, doesn’t it? Just turn off all pressure, and sit there and read without end. Ahhhh.
July 15th, 2007 at 9:18 am
If the rules permitted something interactive and communicative, then I’d be on stage or on a set the whole time!
July 15th, 2007 at 9:31 am
The rules permit whatever you say, Little Willow. You are the ruler of time and space. On the set it is!
July 15th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Oooh, that sounds very Rod Sterling-esque. I like!
July 16th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
This conversation is probably so way-over, and I’m late getting to it, but I was JUST thinking about what I’d do for, oh, even ONE HOUR if someone whisked my girls away (in the middle of the day, when my husband’s also not here to watch them). I’d read, like Adrienne said.
But, I admit: I just saw this ad on NBC for this one-hour prime-time show about how Posh or whatever the hell her name is and her husband That Big Soccer Star (I know nothing about these people) are moving to America, and THERE’LL BE A WHOLE SHOW ABOUT IT. Why?
Why? I ask again.
Does anyone really, truly care?
But, here’s the thing: As the mother of young children, you barely have any time to sit down and be a couch potato just ’cause you feel like it. So, I’d maybe sit down for one whole day and watch utter CRAP, like the behind-the-scenes of the making of some airhead pop star’s music video — just ’cause. I wouldn’t get up. I’d sit there for 24 hours, and I’d just veg.
And watch really bad t.v. programming and get it out of my system.
July 16th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
P.S. I remember a great old “Twilight Zone” (one of the “new” ones in the ’80s) about a woman who finds this thingy in her yard that makes time stop whenever she needs it to. And she makes time stop to give herself breaks.
But then she makes time stop when this nuclear missile is crashing towards Suburbia-Land where she lives.
And then the episode ended.
Ah, ’80s . . . Cold War.
But, it *was* creepy.
July 16th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Jules, I just saw an ad for that today, too, I second your “why?”. Now if it was about Baby or Sporty Spice, then maybe . . .
Seriously, some of these “reality” shows just make me sad. Such a waste of time and money, and then maybe you catch a glimpse of it and it’s like a train wreck and you can’t look away, so there goes an hour or more of your time.
I mean, don’t get me wrong–I’ve been known to TV-veg like a pro–but I try not to support these vapid celebrity-tantrum shows. Sure, a few hours of What Not To Wear or Project Runway–that’s quality entertainment. But not Posh, not ever. My time is much more important than that.
But I still support your wish to try watching some bad TV for as long as you can stand it, just to get it out of your system. I have the feeling you’d only be able to take it for a few hours before you ran screaming back to your books.
But what about 24 hours of chick flicks? Wouldn’t that be some nice relaxation? Nothing but romantic comedies and sappy movies for a whole day and night. That sounds pretty nice.
P.S. I never saw that Twilight Zone episode. Yikes! How cool!
July 16th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
I’d take chick flicks, sure. The idea is to just veg for a period of time without being interrupted, without going to get “ice apple juice” {said in a distinct whine I’m trying to break my oldest of}, without having to play referee to two young girls only 19 mos. apart!
But, yes, 30 min. of Entertainment Tonight, and I’d run screaming for those Tolstoy books I’ve never read. And, yes, I love my wee daughters with the blinding intensity of the sun, but a couch potato break would rock.
If my husband had this time, he’d watch that Discovery Channel show where they blow things up and such (”Mythbusters” — is that the name?). Sara likes it, too!
July 16th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
I found it!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Little_Peace_and_Quiet_(The_Twilight_Zone)
July 16th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Jules, reading that description of the TZ episode gavae me chills! That show gave us such excellent storytelling. Thanks for highlighting this one.
July 17th, 2007 at 5:19 am
This conversation is reminding me of an original TZ, one of my faves:
http://www.scifilm.org/tv/tz/twilightzone1-8.html
July 20th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Ooh, Adrienne, that looks interesting. Never seen it. I could watch those old episodes all day.