Relativity
When one thinks of revolutionary ideas, Einstein’s theory of the relativity of time is one that stands out. Who could have believed that time could be experienced differently depending on one’s location, one’s speed, one’s position?
The relativity of time, now an acknowledged scientific truth, appears to me to be most apparent during international travel. So much so in fact, that I am beginning to think that much of my experience this year is a lesson in the relativity of time; relativity due to cultural norms, due to physical distances, due to external circumstances.
Much of the discomfort that I have felt this last month has been related to the passage of time. I wake up at 6, everyone else has been up since 4. I go to sit in the kitchen, but what is to be done? The tortillas are made, the rice is cooking, the clothes are washed. Everyone is just sitting in the kitchen. I sit, unsure how to just be, and not be doing something. After a long walk, I return to the house with Erick and Byron. I enter my room, then follow them into the sala, where we just sit down and relax, with nothing pressing to do.
I came to this realization this afternoon, on the bus ride back from my day’s excursion. I left El Roblar at 9 a.m. in order to get to an afternoon (time unspecified) appointment at the Union of Agricultural Cooperatives office in San Ramon. Though San Ramon is only an hour and a half away (another lesson in relative time and travel, since it is only about 20 miles), I had to take the morning bus, since another bus doesn’t leave El Roblar until 2 pm. During the two hour bus ride, I slept, thought about what I was going to ask, and showed up at the office about 12:30. I was then told to come back in an hour, as the woman I was to talk to was at lunch. Later in the afternoon, we had a good conversation, and five and a half hours after my departure, I returned to the bus stop to wait for my ride back to the empalme, where I would rechange to the bus to take me home. There I sat, a half hour, an hour, an hour and a half, intermittently asking a young man sitting nearby if the bus that just went by would take me where I was going. “No, it still hasn’t come yet”, was his inevitable response, until he finally asked, “Why are you so nervous about it?”
Why was I so nervous? Why was I checking my watch? That certainly wasn’t going to make the bus come faster. I had no other appointment, nowhere I had to be. No one was waiting for me, there was nothing for me to accomplish today but attending the meeting I had already attended. So why was I so worried about the time passing, and my doing nothing but sitting, reading, and waiting?
Then I realized, I have never lived in a culture where people were not worried about arriving at their class at x time, their job, that meeting, that date, doing A so they could hurry up and get to B. I don’t know how to just let myself wait all day for the bus, just sit in the kitchen, just accept that it’s going to take a long time to do the couple of things I need to do.
Today I spent 9 hours getting to and from a one-hour conversation. I spent a good three hours of that time worrying about whether or not the bus was going to come, about where I was or wasn’t, despite the fact that I didn’t have to be anywhere. Relative to home, moving this slowly through time jiggles my nerves, and leaves me anxious. Relative to here, I have no reason to be nervous, as there is nothing I can do to speed up how quickly I accomplish a particular task. I can only try to learn how to sit quieta, and enjoy enjoy enjoy the nine hours it takes me to get to and from my one hour conversation.
The relativity of time, now an acknowledged scientific truth, appears to me to be most apparent during international travel. So much so in fact, that I am beginning to think that much of my experience this year is a lesson in the relativity of time; relativity due to cultural norms, due to physical distances, due to external circumstances.
Much of the discomfort that I have felt this last month has been related to the passage of time. I wake up at 6, everyone else has been up since 4. I go to sit in the kitchen, but what is to be done? The tortillas are made, the rice is cooking, the clothes are washed. Everyone is just sitting in the kitchen. I sit, unsure how to just be, and not be doing something. After a long walk, I return to the house with Erick and Byron. I enter my room, then follow them into the sala, where we just sit down and relax, with nothing pressing to do.
I came to this realization this afternoon, on the bus ride back from my day’s excursion. I left El Roblar at 9 a.m. in order to get to an afternoon (time unspecified) appointment at the Union of Agricultural Cooperatives office in San Ramon. Though San Ramon is only an hour and a half away (another lesson in relative time and travel, since it is only about 20 miles), I had to take the morning bus, since another bus doesn’t leave El Roblar until 2 pm. During the two hour bus ride, I slept, thought about what I was going to ask, and showed up at the office about 12:30. I was then told to come back in an hour, as the woman I was to talk to was at lunch. Later in the afternoon, we had a good conversation, and five and a half hours after my departure, I returned to the bus stop to wait for my ride back to the empalme, where I would rechange to the bus to take me home. There I sat, a half hour, an hour, an hour and a half, intermittently asking a young man sitting nearby if the bus that just went by would take me where I was going. “No, it still hasn’t come yet”, was his inevitable response, until he finally asked, “Why are you so nervous about it?”
Why was I so nervous? Why was I checking my watch? That certainly wasn’t going to make the bus come faster. I had no other appointment, nowhere I had to be. No one was waiting for me, there was nothing for me to accomplish today but attending the meeting I had already attended. So why was I so worried about the time passing, and my doing nothing but sitting, reading, and waiting?
Then I realized, I have never lived in a culture where people were not worried about arriving at their class at x time, their job, that meeting, that date, doing A so they could hurry up and get to B. I don’t know how to just let myself wait all day for the bus, just sit in the kitchen, just accept that it’s going to take a long time to do the couple of things I need to do.
Today I spent 9 hours getting to and from a one-hour conversation. I spent a good three hours of that time worrying about whether or not the bus was going to come, about where I was or wasn’t, despite the fact that I didn’t have to be anywhere. Relative to home, moving this slowly through time jiggles my nerves, and leaves me anxious. Relative to here, I have no reason to be nervous, as there is nothing I can do to speed up how quickly I accomplish a particular task. I can only try to learn how to sit quieta, and enjoy enjoy enjoy the nine hours it takes me to get to and from my one hour conversation.
posted by Hilary King at
4:24 PM
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