If you are rather a visual person, I attached at the end of the article some screenshots that sum up the ideas in a more visual way. They help me get a clearer picture and they might help you too. Enjoy!
Did you ever think about TIME and the ways you PERCEIVE & EXPERIENCE it? Did you ever wonder how odd is that it seems both CIRCULAR and LINEAR at the same time? I read a bit on the subject due to a personal curiosity that I am researching and here’s what I found:
3 Reasons why Time is LINEAR
1. Time is IRREVERSIBLE
As human beings, we are born, we age, and we die, in that order. We have data about the past, but we cannot, by definition, know facts about the future. We can predict it, we can make projections about it, but we cannot know for a fact what is it going to happen tomorrow. This is because time is unidirectional by the laws of physic.
2. Things FALL APART
The Second Law of Thermodynamics suggests that time is linear and unidirectional because things in our universe go from a state of order to a state of (increasing) disorder.
⚫Your hot cup of coffee becomes cold and it doesn’t heat up back.
⚫A dead body decays, it doesn’t come back to life.
⚫Cars, buildings, material things disintegrate in time.
⚫You are aging.
⚫You can deny all the above, but one day you won’t be around to do it anymore.
3. Time is CUMULATIVE
Time is linear because of the cumulative ways humanity and the existent matter EVOLVES.
⚫ EVOLUTION is INEVITABLE.
You are smarter than you were 1 year ago; You might have not theoretically learned something new, but our brains develop with each experience we have.
Even when your experiences are repetitive and your brain is not creating new synapses, it identifies behavioral patterns on your daily routine & relationship dynamics that develop your perspicacity and responsiveness efficiency.
Imagine that a homeless with no learning opportunities and no new-experiences will learn to become more persuasive when asking for money only by observing the surrounding behaviors of people and by identifying responsiveness patterns.
To sum it up: EVOLUTION cannot be stopped as long as TIME is flowing.
⚫ EVOLUTION INCREASES EVERYTHING EXPONENTIALLY:
The world is developing faster than ever before: it is accumulating on so many aspects each year: knowledge, technology, even the damaging effects of exploiting natural resources and increasing pollution are accumulated into the effect that today we call Climate Change. Everything it’s amplified: the good and the bad, the list of solutions, and the pool of problems, the opportunities, and the risks coming with them.
People have more freedom and tools to reach their full potential, yet the risk of burnout and mental health issues have equally increased.
⚫ THE HOURGLASS EFFECT:
The more time you live, the less you have left. The Sun is getting old and so are you. Both of you are cumulating life while absorbing time. The paradox is that the more time you absorb, the less you have left if you’re thinking through a life-length limit perspective.
The reason we perceive TIME to be CYCLICAL
The Earth, Moon, and Sun move in repeating, elliptical patterns
If from a physics perspective time is linear and unidirectional, how’s that the most used time measurement systems are cyclical?
⚫ The repetition of 60 seconds into a minute;
⚫ The repetition of 60 minutes into an hour;
⚫ The repetition of 24 hours into a day, seven days into a week;
⚫ The repetition of 4 weeks into a month;
⚫ The repetition of 3 months into a season;
⚫ The repetition of 4 seasons into a year.
For the bottom line, TIME is explained by physics in a LINEAR way, yet we perceive it and experienced it in both: a CIRCULAR way (on a yearly basis) and a LINEAR way (on a life basis). Isn’t it curious?
Where is this supposed to lead? I was lately gravitating about this LINEAR & CIRCULAR perception due to a recent idea that stroke my mind, regarding how could one have a sharper vision on BUILDING STRATEGY. It doesn’t necessarily matter if it’s created for business development or just marketing.
Throughout my daily job, I had recently been working on a particular project, developing a plan that was meant to assure sustainability for the execution of strategy and its expected flow.
And while writing about it and acknowledging all the verticals that were supposed to stick in the loop, it stroke me. There was an incredible insight regarding strategy that was missing in the whole picture.
Stay tuned. It will be continued.
IDEAS SUM-UP
