The Sweep of Time
The Gentle Anarchist, March 2026
The double headed monster of damnation and salvation, time.
- Samuel Beckett
We ended our initial look at time, in the first Sotheran’s Quarterly, on the importance of recognising the underlying forces of nature in our daily lives. This is not intended to sound like some strange new mysticism or to take us back to some romantic home-farm lifestyle—as advertised in the Whole Earth catalogue in the sixties. It is simply a recognition of reality. Let us liberally date the first stirrings of what we call “civilization” at around 5,000 years ago. What is this compared with two-million years or more of human development, four-hundred-million years of evolution or the thirteen-and-a-half-billion years which is our current estimate for the age of the known universe? The periods of time are so disparate that accuracy hardly matters.
Modern history is like the activities of a group of maniacs who have been waltzing about upon the platform of thin ice left by Judeo-Christianity upon the surface of a primeval flood covering the ruins of some giant civilization.
Harry Fainlight
Those of us who would like to believe that the gilding of civilisation can disguise the roughly hewn material beneath will inevitably find, time and again, that nature bubbles and bursts its way through—and realise just how irksome this can be.
It is a frustrating state of affairs, full of soap, wireless waves, the arrogant symbolic language of mathematical and chemical formulae, economics, experimental research and mankind’s inability to live in simple but sublime community.
Robert Musil
The takeaway for the moment is that nature might have more influence and staying power that we sometimes realise: not everything can be satisfactorily answered by a new streaming series, celebrity cookbook, a bank that wants to be “with you for life” (like a horse apparently) or even enjoying the latest plug-in air freshener. It is possible that none of these things really matter.
… and what it means for each of us in the morning.
The strongest driver for all living things, even booksellers, is the will to survive. In waking we all renew our pledge to that cult and its dictates. I am guessing, and it is no more than a guess, that very few people commit suicide first thing in the morning. By getting up we recognise the natural state of things and, incidentally, acknowledge various demands on our attention—which is some comfort at least to our partners, or employers, who wait daily for our devotions, governments, who appear so keen on our productive outputs. However, in a perceived reluctance to take part in the productive effort, the popular conception has arisen that anarchists, even the most gentle ones, tend to sleep late.
So should the gently aspiring anarchist adopt a different approach, play to the stereotype and kick against getting up in the morning? The simple answer is no. Whatever anarchy represents today it is not intended to overthrow the dictates of nature. Even the anarchist is subject to nature and must rise and take part in the human race with the rest of mankind or risk the consequences of failing to do so. In doing this act alone we do not provide a mandate for any particular aspect of society or government but simply advertise our existence and declare our interest in life.
Now we have some options…
If getting up at a regular hour seems to be too compliant to the dictates of others, then there are at least two alternative approaches you might consider.
The first is to rise and retire at dawn and dusk. This is certainly in keeping with the spirit of the natural world but of course ignores much of what we call civilisation. While this notion might sound quite appealing with the benefits of simplicity and regularity, it is unlikely to be a practicable solution for many of us, particularly in seasonal parts of the world. Too many days will either be too short or too long and you will inevitably miss some of the best parties, book events and much other social intercourse. As a result, this will generally only work for the more reclusive types or those who not only want to live simply but who also live near enough to the equator to make this practicable.
The second option, and the one I personally favour, is to rise and retire at will. This should certainly appeal to the determined individualist and, while it might appear to be at odds with nature’s clock, if it works for you as an individual it’s hard to argue with. If you can achieve an easy approach to the day's demands, without too much strain, this must represent the ideal life solution and the one most suited to the spirit of gentle anarchy we are trying to foster. The morning I jotted this down I had woken just after four and, with no indication that sleep would return, it seemed sensible to make use of the time.
Adoption of this regime does not mean doing without a regimen; most of us benefit from having some regularity in our lives.
Habit is a compromise effected between the individual and his environment, or between the individual and his own organic eccentricities, the guarantee of a dull inviolability, the lightning-conductor of his existence.
Samuel Beckett
It may suit some of us to start the day early but then to have a break in the afternoon when our body clocks are at their lowest ebb and an hour on the couch beckons. Others may prefer a later start with (in the case of one of our booksellers) a dip in Hampstead Ponds but then to work late into the night. A few night owls may love the quiet solitude night-time brings. Patterns and repetition make for an easy life and though many profess to enjoy variety, there can be no denying that the adoption of a regular cycle, each choosing their own, seems to provide a basic structure, and an underlying harmony, and makes spontaneity all the more enjoyable.
… but, would society suffer?
It is hard to see how. If certain jobs have to be done at a particular time—for example if there is a bookshop to be opened—then the people who perform them would, presumably, make arrangements in their lives to accommodate this. However, if there is no such requirement, and a particular task or service can be carried out at any time, then why dictate otherwise? Few things have shown this more dramatically than pandemic lockdowns and home working, at least for those who are fortunate enough for this to be an option and think it’s a good idea—personally in the brief periods I have worked from home I have missed the social interaction and couldn’t wait to get back.
Technology, we are constantly being told, may provide the key to a new and more enlightened approach to time—assuming that we can learn to use it properly and not allow it to dictate our actions. Of course, if there are fewer constraints on when things have to be done, in turn, there will be a general diffusion of when things are done. As the pandemic eased, we saw the dramatic impact on rush hour traffic as more people were able to make their own decisions about when to travel. It is hard to think of a simpler means to ease congestion in the longer term; if work times were less rigid, shops, offices and restaurants might open and close on the same basis creating even more variety.
Who controls the past controls the future:
Who controls the present controls the past
George Orwell
What of time itself?
Of course at present, our view of time or at least how we describe it, varies as we circumnavigate the globe. Perhaps the essential unity of the world would be more easily achieved through a singular earth time, rather than the current system of local time zones?
The use of universal time might struggle to gain traction but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about it. After all, in our day-to-day lives, time does not vary in any real or linear sense from one place to another. What does vary is when the sun rises and sets, but why should time be manipulated to coordinate this depending on where you are on the planet? Rather than changing time zones we could simply change the time at which things typically happen.
An idea for another day perhaps, given the dramatic falling away of global ideals in the face of renewed (and typically unattractive) nationalism. Certainly, if governments could be persuaded to move to a single universal time it might be one less thing to concern themselves with, something simple that everyone could agree on. Although one loss, for a bookseller sitting in London, is that you would no longer be able to show the time in Delhi (four and a half hours ahead) by looking at an old-fashioned watch-face upside down!
The calendar.
If gentle anarchy is, literally, to seize the hour then there is no logical reason why we should not also take control of the day. In the past, our week has been determined by three, often competing, demands; work, religion and commerce. At one time employers insisted on six days labour and would probably have taken seven if the church had not insisted on the Sabbath. Indeed, the durability of the concept of resting on the Lord's Day is, in itself, a testament to the power of organised religion in society.
In the last 100 years (and you will recall how insignificant a period this is in the natural world or even just in social terms) an extra day (and sometimes even two) has been squeezed from the employer which is generally devoted to shopping, sport and leisure. We might see this as a gift, but really it is simply a necessary allowance to enable us to fulfil our role as consumers; Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle at work.
But should the church (distinct from God) still have its day? Accepting, for the moment, that there is a necessary proportion of our lives which is devoted to the need to work and, equally, that a day of rest is a good thing, why should it matter which days are allocated to each activity? Again, we should determine for ourselves—and through negotiation with those alongside whom we live and work—which days are to be devoted to work and which days are to be for our own pleasure.
If governments wanted to assist, they could repeal all those laws about what can be bought on a Sunday and when bars and restaurants must close. Not likely, of course, although it is quite difficult to even begin to argue why—provided that the principle of neighbourliness is recognised—but even the gentlest of anarchists must have a dream. While we wait for change, we should take our own affirmative action whenever possible.
All the major calendar reforms of the past have been put in place by emperors, popes or potentates.
Alexander Waugh
In the past, there have been notable attempts to mark the beginning of a new era by creating a new calendar with new names for the days and months and a new starting point for counting the years.
Changes range from the adoption of BCE and CE in place of BC and AD (marking at least a recognition of the wider cultural values which is certainly to be favoured), the rejection of the existing calendar and the creation of a whole new system, and even at one time a brief dalliance with the ten hour clock. This last example occurred during the French revolution when, for a time at least, a ten-day week was also adopted and the months renamed to reflect their various physical characteristics.
Most of these changes have been the conceits of rulers or potentates but occasionally individuals such as William Burroughs or Zen Buddhist Gary Snyder have adopted their own dates and terminology. Burroughs, influenced no doubt by his interest in the Mayan calendar, favoured months of 23 days each and named his own months, starting his calendar on 23rd December, 1969—or Terre Haute 23 to use his nomenclature. Often these attempts sacrifice astronomical accuracy in favour of some political ideal when, quite plainly, the priorities should be reversed. Nevertheless, they represent attempts by a few courageous souls to set their own mark on the passage of their lives and to break free from the shackles of someone else’s system.
The political power of the calendar was rarely more apparent than in classical Mayan culture where it formed the basis for kings and the priestly class to hold and exercise control for succeeding centuries.
The fundamental unit of Maya time was the day, or kin. The Maya kept track of the passage of linear time by counting each elapsed day since a mythical event that occurred in 3114 BCE in the modern Gregorian calendar. The Maya accounted for time’s passage in two simultaneously running calendars. One of these was a calendar of 260 days. The second calendar was based on a vague year or solar year comprising the more familiar 365 days. A total of 18,980 days, or 52 of the 365 day years, elapsed before any particular number and day in one calendar coincided again with a particular day and month in the solar calendar.
Abridged from Prudence Rice
There was great elegance and precision in the Mayan calendar but in the last analysis it became just another control system for the ruling and priestly classes. As George Orwell asserted in the earlier quotation, the ability to predict heavenly events in the future, as at Stonehenge or Brodga, was clearly seen as delivering power over the present.
It is beyond our purpose here to suggest a new calendrical system, but one or two points may be noteworthy. First, a gently anarchic calendar might choose to measure the years from an agreed astronomical or geological event such as the last appearance of Halley's comet or a particular alignment of the planets upon which all reasonably minded people might agree. Although, as long as many people take the creation of the World in seven days as an unchallengeable truth and ascribe the creation of the world to a date in October around 6000 years ago, one wonders if it will ever be possible to agree on anything. Perhaps simply a date chosen at random would be easier, say around 5,000 years ago, so that the development of the current phase of human existence can be viewed as a linear progression rather than being split randomly into before and after.
The second suggestion is that, as the gentle anarchists we are, each of us might wish to overlay society's chosen system with our own measure of days, the days since our birth. This may be impracticable as a device to aid social intercourse, but it would certainly reinforce our own individual timeline and the need to make the most of each and every day. Nick Cave and his autobiographical film 20,000 Days springs to mind. On a more modest scale I have found a useful device to track various stages in my own life by counting down 1000 days before reaching sixty or the number of days since starting a new phase in my life. As I type this, I realise I am on day 24,000 exactly which is obviously a lot and makes me realise I need to get on if I am going to get things done and turn Sotheran’s around!
Living without time.
Finally, if these ideas seem far-fetched, it is worth reminding ourselves that it is perfectly possible to live as a society without any concept of time as we understand it today. Many historians believe that the Hopi tribe in America had no words for time or any concept of past, present or future. Instead of past, present and future the Hopi thought in terms of manifesting (objective) and unmanifesting (subjective).
The objective or manifested comprises all that is or has been accessible to the senses, the historical physical universe, in fact, with no attempt to distinguish between present and past, but excluding everything we call future. The subjective or unmanifesting comprises all that we call future, but not merely this; it includes equally and indistinguishably all that we call mental - everything that appears or exists in the mind, or as the Hopi would say, in the heart, not only the heart of man but the heart of animals, plants and things, and behind and within all the forms and appearances of nature in the heart of nature, and by an implication and extension which has been felt by more than one anthropologist, yet would hardly ever be spoken of by a Hopi himself, so charged is the idea with religious and magical awesomeness, in the very heart of the Cosmos itself.
- Benjamin Lee Whorf
The Hopi were one of the pre-eminent civilisations in the Americas who lived perfectly happily with their own world view, without any concept we would recognise as time, for thousands of years. It is not as far removed from Eliot’s summary in the first of his Four Quartets which we quoted from in Sotheran’s first Quarterly, but which bears repetition here:
Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
- T.S. Eliot
Where does this leave us? In summary, the gentle anarchist should work, worship, rest and play as nature, our own predilections and our immediate family, friends and society require, and should recognise the dictates about time from government for what they are: no more than another aspect of the mythology of control through the control of myths.
To be continued