Two (and possibly more) ways to perceive time.
This comes to mind for me as new music is released every single week.
Charles McNair, the one-time book section editor at Paste, once told me that he liked to think there was never a bad time to introduce readers to a good book.
I don’t remember how, when, where, or through whom I came across the concept of monochronic and polychronic time, but I think about it every week. As someone who writes about music, it’s become part the routine flow of my life to hear about albums months before their official release dates. So I’m in a state of perpetual buildup and (pleasant) anticipation as these dates approach.
On top of the music that I myself like or find interesting, there’s music that I think would make a good “story” from an audience or editor’s perspective. Inevitably, though, I have to throw titles overboard and cut the rope as release dates come and go. This is, believe it or not, tremendously stressful, for a number of reasons — not the least being that when I relay my enthusiasm to either a publicist or an artist, it feels like an unfulfilled promise when I don’t come up with anything.
I actually like the fact that we still anchor album releases around a concrete date. I look back fondly on the days when you’d actually go out to a store on the release date to buy an album you’d been on the edge of your seat waiting for. On the other hand, I have no idea why music outlets don’t just adopt a “we’ll assign contributors to cover whatever the hell we feel like covering” policy, regardless of how old vs. new a given album is.
That’s my policy from here on out. It’s quite liberating.
On a related note, in former NPR correspondent Eric Weiner's 2008 book The Geography of Bliss, Weiner writes that in India, it's customary for people to show up an hour late even for formal business meetings, while in Switzerland it's considered rude to be even one minute late.
As it turns out, though, this isn't simply due to contrasting attitudes about punctuality, but to a fundamental difference in the way cultures perceive time.
When I first read the Wikipedia entry below, a lot clicked for me, particularly being a person who's descended from not one but two cultures with loose relationships to time but who was born and raised in the States, where the idea that you always have to be doing something with your time is pretty much imprinted on you at birth — something I actually don't mind.
Since coming across the concept of monochronic vs. polychronic time, I’ve gotten a kick out of the idea that some of us might be what I now refer to as bi-temporal. I wonder whether people who observe the Mayan calendar system are “bi-temporal” in an even more profound way, seeing as the ancient Mayan way of organizing time consists of multiple overlapping cycles, which suggests that what Westerners would view as a single “day” can exist in one’s perception as multiple “days” — or a position within numerous currents of time, which blows my mind even further.
I mean, to think that there are all sorts of different ways we can view the flow of time, and thus exist and orient ourselves within it, wow… But I’d better get back to those album release dates!
from Wiki:
Monochronic time
A monochronic time system means that things are done one at a time and time is segmented into small precise units. Under this system, time is scheduled, arranged, and managed.[4]
The United States considers itself a monochronic society. This perception came about during the Industrial Revolution. Many Americans think of time as a precious resource not to be wasted or taken lightly.[5] As a communication scholar Edward T. Hall wrote regarding the American's viewpoint of time in the business world, "the schedule is sacred." Hall says that for monochronic cultures, such as the American culture, "time is tangible" and viewed as a commodity where "time is money" or "time is wasted." John Ivers, a professor of cultural paradigms, agrees with Edward Hall by stating, "In the market sense, monochronic people consume time."[6] The result of this perspective is that monochronic cultures place a paramount value on schedules, tasks, and "getting the job done."[full citation needed]
Monochronic time orientation is very prominent in North European cultures, Italy, Greece, Spain, England, and the Scandinavian countries.[7] For example, a businessperson from the USA has a meeting scheduled, they then grow frustrated because they are waiting an hour for their partner to arrive. This is an example of a monochronic time oriented individual running in with a polychronic time oriented individual.[8] The interesting thing is that even though America is seen as one of the most monochronic countries it "has subcultures that may lean more to one side or the other of the monochronic-polychronic divide" within the states themselves. One can see this as they compare the southern states to the northern ones. John Ivers points this out with comparing waiters in the northern and southern restaurants. The waiters from the north are "to the point": they will "engage in little" and there is usually "no small talk." They are trying to be as efficient as possible, while those in the south will work towards "establishing a nice, friendly, micro-relationship" with the customer. They are still considerate of time, but it is not the most important goal in the south.[6]
The culture of African Americans might also be seen as polychronic (see CP Time)
Polychronic time
A polychronic time system is a system where several things can be done at once, and wider view of time is exhibited and time is perceived in large fluid sections.[4]
Examples of polychronic cultures are: Latin American, African, Arab, South Asian, and Native American cultures. These cultures' view on time can be connected to "natural rhythms, the earth, and the seasons". These analogies can be understood and compared because natural events can occur spontaneously and sporadically, just like polychronic time oriented people and polychronic time oriented cultures.[9] A scenario would be an Inuit working in a factory in Alaska, the superiors blow a whistle to alert for break times, etc. The Inuit are not fond of that method because they determine their times by the sea tides. How long it takes place and how long it lasts. In polychronic cultures, "time spent with others" is considered a "task" and of importance to one's daily regimen.[8]
Polychronic cultures are much less focused on the preciseness of accounting for time. Polychronic cultures are more focused on tradition and relationships rather than on tasks. Polychronic societies have no problem being late for an appointment if they are deeply focused on some work or in a meeting that ran past schedule, because the concept of time is fluid and can easily expand or contract as need be. As a result, polychronic cultures have a much less formal perception of time. They are not ruled by precise calendars and schedules.[5]
also from Wiki (if you can make sense of this):
The Maya calendar consists of several cycles or counts of different lengths. The 260-day count is known to scholars as the Tzolkin, or Tzolkʼin.[5] The Tzolkin was combined with a 365-day vague solar year known as the Haabʼ to form a synchronized cycle lasting for 52 Haabʼ, called the Calendar Round. The Calendar Round is still in use by many groups in the Guatemalan highlands.[6]
A different calendar was used to track longer periods of time and for the inscription of calendar dates (i.e., identifying when one event occurred in relation to others). This is the Long Count. It is a count of days since a mythological starting-point.[7] According to the correlation between the Long Count and Western calendars accepted by the great majority of Maya researchers (known as the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson, or GMT, correlation), this starting-point is equivalent to August 11, 3114 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or September 6, in the Julian calendar (−3113 astronomical). The GMT correlation was chosen by John Eric Sydney Thompson in 1935 on the basis of earlier correlations by Joseph Goodman in 1905 (August 11), Juan Martínez Hernández in 1926 (August 12) and Thompson himself in 1927 (August 13).[8] By its linear nature, the Long Count was capable of being extended to refer to any date far into the past or future. This calendar involved the use of a positional notation system, in which each position signified an increasing multiple of the number of days. The Maya numeral system was essentially vigesimal (i.e., base-20) and each unit of a given position represented 20 times the unit of the position which preceded it. An important exception was made for the second-order place value, which instead represented 18 × 20, or 360 days, more closely approximating the solar year than would 20 × 20 = 400 days. The cycles of the Long Count are independent of the solar year.
Many Maya Long Count inscriptions contain a supplementary series, which provides information on the lunar phase, number of the current lunation in a series of six and which of the nine Lords of the Night rules.
Less-prevalent or poorly understood cycles, combinations and calendar progressions were also tracked. An 819-day Count is attested in a few inscriptions. Repeating sets of 9 days (see below "Nine lords of the night")[9] associated with different groups of deities, animals and other significant concepts are also known.
<3 SRK