Olena Marukhnyak

The Perception of Time

With the turn of centuries, time has become to be perceived as the most valuable thing in

life. While some see time as a holder of endless possibilities and opportunities, others tend to

fear it since it cannot be slowed down, stopped, or turned back. With modernization and

industrialization, we have begun to strife to control time. It is seen as a potential barrier to

achieving goals, since there are always deadlines to meet and frameworks to fit in. This has

sparked the attempts to construct and order time, seeking to find order.

Before the concept of clock time was introduced in the 19th century, everything was based

on the natural time. This included everything from seasonal changes to sunsets and sunrises.

However, the unpredictability of nature caused fear, for it was believed to be the reason for

chaos. To keep a society and its members under control, collective ways of relating to the past

and the future had to be established. Everyone’s activities had to be synchronized to follow one

general pattern. This is the cause of cultures developing their own perceptions of time.

Before time was seen as one continuous line, it revolved around in circles because of the

order of nature. The first linear organization of time can be traced to the monasteries of medieval

Europe. Max Weber believes that monks saw a need for rationalized conduct in order to

overcome the natural state. It would help them overcome the dependence on impulses and the

world of nature. Rational action and proper time keeping would prevent people from wasting

time. The sole concept of “wasting time” never existed before societies began to industrialize

and fast-paced lives became a virtue.

 After one country began operation under a specific order, others had to follow. This led

to the globalization of the day and the concept of world time. Everything became dependent on

clock time, pace and tempo stressed more than ever. Time was industrialized, and now was

imposed and adopted by various cultures. To be modern and progressive you had to be fast, in

sync with the rest of the world. Time has also become an abstract exchange value. We now not

only pay for the goods we acquire, but for all the time that was spent in the process of those

goods being made and delivered. Something is considered to be more valuable if someone spent

a year on than if it was made in a week, even if the quality is the same. Karl Marx believed that

there is a need to intensify labor time in order for employees to be profitable and competitive.

Everything has to be put under the stress of time. The new time perception allows us to rearrange

past, present, and future. Electric lights have allowed us to colonize the night, and now darkness

is no longer a barrier to our productivity.

However, with the globalization of time each culture has found different ways of

incorporating this concept into their own society. Industry and economy play a big role in

creating these differences. Countries that are better developed and industrialized tend to have a

completely different concept of time than the third world countries. When society is not

dominated my machinery, nature and instincts have a bit more say in our actions.

The United States

Industrialization has taken a great toll on the US. With an active and expanding economy

time is greatly valued. The level of development in a country is directly proportional to the

amount of free time of its citizens. The more developed the nation – the less time people have to

themselves. There is always stress to get things done, since more and more things are now
needed to be done in the first place. When the society is mainly agricultural, people’s main

concern is the weather and the amount of produce collected. The weather now has a minimal

effect on our society, since it has no effect on the machines and technology we are now

dominated by. Our technological advancement has come to the point where we’re able to create

the NIST-7, a clock that will measure time with maximum precision for the next million years.

This shows how dependent and obsessed Americans are with measuring and controlling time.

Values of a country have a great effect on its time perception. Individualistic countries

move faster than those that stress collectivism. The US stresses the individual and emphasizes

achievement of one rather than conformity to a group and its success. We believe that one has

endless possibilities and opportunities to achieve their goals, thus prompting people to work

towards the realization of these goals. The Protestant work ethic introduced the “time is money”

mindset. From the moment on, this has been the driving force of American lives. Every moment

counts. If you have already done some work today but have free time on your hands now, you

should go and do some more work. If you don’t have free time, then you’re doing a good job.

Stress of individualism puts a lot of stress on a person in the US. We feel like if we don’t do

what we were supposed to do at the time we were supposed to do it – hell will freeze over. In

societies that stress collectivism, individuals do not worry as much about getting things done.

Since everyone is responsible for the same thing, then if you don’t do something it means that

someone else will do it. So why should you if you don’t feel like it? In US, there are very little

feeling involved. We do what the clock tells us to. If it’s past midday, we have lunch. If it’s past

six o’clock, we have dinner. If it’s ten at night, we go to bed. We don’t eat when we’re hungry

and sleep when we’re tired, for there are designated times to do these things and going against

the clock is outrageous.

 As a culture, Americans are very impatient. Due to the stress of time and constant lack

thereof, we have great urgency to do things before it’s too late. We become stressed, nervous,

and angry if we’re running late for an appointment or being behind a certain deadline. An

example our lack of stress toleration is provided by Edward Hall, who has observed the

distribution of public bathrooms in the US. We try to deny the existence of this sense of urgency

by taking great measures to hide the location of a restroom. “Americans are the people who

judge the advancement of others by their plumbing.”(Edward Hall)

The tempo of our life affects out perception of duration. If what we do is interesting and

entertaining, time seems to fly by. Since this is the concept Americans strive for (moving as fast

as possible), we have a great need for variety in every of its aspects. Variety prevents us from

being bored, which in its turn causes time to go by much slower. When time is going by slowly,

Americans face terror. When there is nothing to do, the situation if perceived to be awkward and

very uncomfortable. To keep ourselves occupied, we always try to come up with new things to

do, games to play, cars to drive, magazines to read, and TV shows to watch. This is the sole

reason for having hundreds of TV channels, even though no sane person will watch all 300 of

them on a regular basis. Americans like rapid and perpetual change. This puts stress on media,

fashion, and music industries. They always have to come up with something new for us to be

obsessed with.

Mechanical clocks have first been introduced to mark the beginning and ending of

activities. This has evolved into scheduling and organization of social events. Now, we use

clocks to regulate the speed of our actions. Before the clock, there was no way to do things like

walking too fast or too slow. You just walked at your own pace. This is not the case now, for if

you walk too slowly, you will be late to your appointment at three, which in its turn will delay

the appointment at six, which will just mess up your whole day. The clock has come to dictate
the flow of life. People arrange themselves around the clock and follow the socially accepted

timeframes rather than their own biological clock. A man’s actions are now synchronized.

Being efficient can be considered as one of American values. The Systems and

Procedures Association of America has developed target times for daily activities. For example,

• Open and close file drawer: .026 seconds

• Close center drawer: .027 seconds
• Close side drawer: .015 seconds
• Get up from chair: .033 seconds
• Turn in swivel chair: .009 seconds
• Move chair to adjoining desk or file: .050 seconds
It seems almost surreal that Americans have calculated such precise times for doing things we

barely take a notice of. It only adds to our obsession with efficiency and time preservation.

Would taking .05 seconds to turn in a swivel chair be such a big of a crime? No, but you still

should not do it since you will lose time which can be used to do something more efficient…

In a world where time cannot be measured, there are no clocks, no

calendars, no definite appointments. Events are triggered by other events,
not by time. A house is begun when stone and lumber arrive at the building
site. The stone quarry delivers stone when the quarryman needs money.
Trains leave the station when the cars are filled with passengers.(Einstein’s
Dreams, by Alan Lightman)
Things in nature happen not because they have schedules to follow or appointments to

visit, but because they choose to. People can also choose to do things when they believe it is time

for these things to be done. The Earth would not stop revolving if you ate lunch at three rather

than at two or if you went to sleep at eleven rather than ten or even if you were late to an

appointment by a few minutes. However, in the US punctuality is not questioned. It is nearly

worshipped. We do what the clock tells us and not what our body does. Scheduling and

organization has become so important that when we think of time we usually see two things – a

clock on a wall and a calendar or a planner.

 The American time is linear time. We see time as one continuous motion forward,

without stops or breaks. This creates a sense of responsibility for fulfilling all the stops along the

line in order not to let anything just pass by. Americans want to grasp everything they possibly

can and have fear of losing time.

Japan

Japan’s time perception is based mostly on cultural norms and values rather than on

economic notions. However, during the times when Japan was still considered to be a poor and

technologically superior, not working until you had absolutely no strength left was a sin. This

country was relatively late in modernizing but very fast in doing so.

In Japan, working is everything. There is no fine line between work and play like there is

in the US. Their workday does not have a rigid starting and ending time. They have been

socialized to work as hard as they can and never take breaks for personal reasons. Since they are

so used to always being occupied, they have concepts such as Nichiyoy byou or “Sunday

Disease” and Kyuujitu byou or “The Holiday Syndrome”. The Japanese actually experience

physical pain when have nothing to do. It seems as if while working, they enjoy life, but once out

of work, they cannot stand it.

The workaholism of the Japanese stems from the notion of giri, or one’s duties and

obligations to the society and its expectations. They like everything to be planned out and put in

an orderly manner. Commitment to a company doesn’t begin and end at a specific time; it is a

never ending responsibility. One cannot put himself before the group, for that disrupts the

harmony, or the wa. Social harmony predominates speed and competition. It is not as important
to do better that everyone else, but rather as much as everyone else. Doing better disrupts the

harmony and the natural order of things.

The Japanese work long hours but the production is not as great as would be expected

from such a society. The reason for this is that work is not production oriented, but rather

fulfilling your obligations to the society. However, time cannot be wasted. Free time is not what

Americans regard as free time – leisure activity. In Japan, everything the people do is valued.

Even empty space is not really empty. The word ma, or spaces or intervals between objects,

signifies that there is no emptiness but rather the space is full of nothing. Time is important under

any circumstances; it cannot be wasted by any means. A worker must always seem busy and like

he’s doing something, even though no actual job needs to be done at the moment. The yoka, or

time left, is not regarded to be equal in value to working time. Because the Japanese view hard

work as a virtue, they have a notion of karoshi, or death by overwork. It is a quite common

phenomenon, since hotlines have been established for people to call and talk to others if they

think they are in danger of overworking.

Being fast is seen as being virtuous. If you move slowly in Japan, you are wasting time

and not fulfilling your obligations. They always have to keep busy, take as many work days as

possible and as little vacations as possible. The only reason someone takes a vacation is if the

domestic market is down. In such a situation the need for consumers increases in order to pick

economy back up, and the only time people buy things is when they have free time. At such an

instance, the government urges workers to take vacations and threatens them to lose their jobs if

not done as told. The Japanese also have a low tolerance of tardiness. Their trains are considered

to be on time if the delay is less than one minute. For the Westerners, the accepted “on-time”

notion is 1-14 minutes. If the train is 15 minutes late, it is only then delayed. This shows how

important time is for the Japanese and how valued it is in the society.
Mexico

In lesser developed countries such as Mexico, time and money are independent

quantities. Just because you have a lot of free time does not mean you can instead fill it up with

work and exceed in life. There are not as many job opportunities as in more developed countries,

thus decreasing the importance of preserving time. They live at their own pace, not the one

dictated by the machines and norms.

There is a saying in Mexico, dar tiempo al tiempo or “give time to time.” Mexicans agree

that time is the most valuable thing a person has, but for a different reasons. They believe that it

should not be wasted to create “inorganic monetary units” and instead used to enjoy life. Letting

time go is not a sin as it is for the US and Japan. Being late for an appointment is not as

important as your social relations. If one needs to go see a family member or a friend while

knowing they have an appointment, they still go and see the person they want to see. There are

fewer incentives in Mexico to be on time, for it is not required of them by the society nor will It

improve their overall well being. They live with time.

Burundi

In Central Africa, people are guided by the seasonal changes since they are an

agricultural society. The obsession with the clock time did not yet catch up to them, nor will it do

is in the near future. Appointments people make are regulated by natural cycles and once again

not by a mechanical clock. How people relate to time is based on activities of the cows, since
they are the most common animals and the easiest to relate to. When someone wants to make a

late afternoon appointment, they say “I’ll see you when the cows go out.”

Being precise is seen as too much of a hassle and is not looked favorably upon. An hour

earlier or later does not really matter, since of someone said they will be at a place in the midday,

they will be there. Even though making appointments at night gets difficult, they do not see a

need for quantities of time. They refer to a very dark night as the “Who are you?” night, since it

is so dark they cannot see each other’s face. To make an appointment at night, they define on

how dark or light it will be at that time.

This society has no need for the precision of a clock. They are driven by forces of nature

and rely on their biological clock. There is no need to hurry, for what is there now will still be

there a few minutes later.

The Piraha Tribe

The Piraha Tribe which is located in the Amazon rainforest is the only culture in the

world that does not have a creation myth. They have no numbers or a written language for that

matter wither. They do not have past tense. Everything exists in the present. If it is not here right

now, then it does not exist.

The language of the Piraha tribe is very limited, consisting of humming and whistling.

They do not write and do not memorize things. These people don’t tell stories of their ancestors

and very few can remember their grandparents’ names. Since they have no way of talking about

the past, it ceases to exist. This, they have no stories of where they came from or how the world

was created. All they say is “The world is made.”

 Time is a quantity beyond their grasp. They rely purely on nature and their instincts, with

which they are greatly intact. There are no numbers to give time value to. The only word they

have for a quantity is hoi, or small, little in amount, close to one. They don’t see a need to define

time, and have been able to survive for centuries without this notion.

The Piraha refer only to the immediate personal experiences. They are not interested in

the past nor the future. They live here and now. Everything is anchored in the present. They do

not try to control nature nor organize forces beyond their grasp like the modern societies do.

They are content with today’s day and live without a tomorrow in mind.

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Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.

Lightman, Alan. Einstein’s Dreams. New York: Warner Books, 1994.

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The Independent Science. May 6, 2006.

Rafaela von Bredow. “Living Without Numbers or Time.” Spiegel International. May 3, 2006.

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http://www.skidmore.edu/~hfoley/Time.htm