Time and Economy

Time. Every person on earth has this commodity in equal amounts. We all get the same 168 hours in each week yet over time we seem to have less and less of it. What’s going on? In their book Time for Life, John Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey wrote:

In ancient and traditional societies, time had to do with the ebb and flow of tides, the orbits of sun and moon, and the passing of seasons. It was marked by thinning light, the gradual thawing of ice, or the birth of lambs in the endlessly recurring seasons. Time was a circle within which humans lived. Not only was there an element of recreation in the economic activities of most preindustrial cultures, but in many the amount of time available for leisure appears to have been as great or greater than our own. (p. 26)

They went on to explain that preindustrial cultures spend about 3 or 4 hours per day meeting material needs. After eating, sleeping and providing for themselves, people like the aborigines, retain about 84 hours per week for pursuing social, creative and spiritual endeavors. In America, we retain about 30 hours per week for similar pursuits. By the time we occupy that 30 hours with internet browsing, cell phone perusal and television watching, we’ve used it up.

At this point, we’ve become an unconscious automatic culture that is floundering like a fish out of water. In Man and His Symbols, Carl Jung (pp. 64-72) indicated that the drive toward individuation, or claiming the God within, is instinctual and that we have separated from that instinct.

Without time to integrate daily activities within the psyche, or time to pursue spiritual consciousness and creativity, there is no society. There is only a group of automatons serving a different God, an economic God. The original idea was for the economy to serve us, not have us serve the economy. What good is it if we can’t follow our most basic instinct to higher consciousness?

We are in the midst of an awakening to an economic enslavement and our freedom rests in taking back our time. Call your friends and ask them how they are. Spirit thrives within your creativity so create something. Giving material things that you grab off a shelf will not awaken you, but keep you unconsciously serving the economy. Material things are fine and necessary, but all things in good measure to keep the balance. Giving something you create brings the spirit alive of both giver and receiver. That is how the economy can serve us and we can use our time to follow our instinct.