Coming in midway? Check out the first part of Four Thousand Weeks here and the second one here.
I tend to have thoughts about this substack not being worth my time. It feels like a chore. Yet, every time this is published on Saturday, this creation is released out into the world hoping it can do a little good.
The notification on Saturday is but one of those special moments where it’s released to meet your eyes. Chapter 12 talks about this shared unison in meeting and sharing time together. Like a mailman giving you the weekly read in person, that moment is created for us.
It’s when we view time in the manner of shared points where time derives its value. Shared experiences. Shared opportunities. A shared life. Together, we create art.
Burkeman continues on with chapter 13, Cosmic Insignificance Therapy. TL;DR: nothing matters at the end of it all. We’re all going to be forgotten. Kinda depressing at first not gonna lie, but that settling into meaning frees us from choosing the “right” path. At least it did for me. There is no right or wrong, simply being and choosing. Choosing a path that will open up different opportunities and pathways such as with moving jobs or staying at one. It all is simply a path for one to go through that is unique to you and you alone.
What if we wanna do something else with our time? What if we want something more? The Human Disease of striving is discussed next. 5 questions were provided by Oliver Burkeman. I glossed over them. It’s a framework. One way to approach reflection. Dive deeper into your intrinsic self and the outside world will follow. And that is exactly what I did at this very moment writing this out to you.
Wrapping up, there is but a freeing ending to embrace confrontation and facing what it is to make the most of your Four Thousand Weeks.
12. The Loneliness of the Digital Nomad
“Yet the truth is that time is also a ‘network good,’ one that derives its value from how many other people have access to it, too, and how well their portion is coordinated with yours.”
“‘The social regulation of time’: greater outside pressure to use their time in particular ways.’”
“The question is, What kind of freedom do we really want when it comes to time?”
Main Point: Choose time in relation to others & how you would spend it. We create moments in relation to others with the time available.
13. Cosmic Insignificance Therapy
“What would it mean to spend the only time you ever get in a way that truly feels as though you are making it count?”
“That what you do with your life doesn’t matter all that much – and when it comes to how you’re using your finite time, the universe absolutely could not care less.”
Main Point: Nihilism. Nothing matters. We’re all going to be forgotten. Choose now.
14. The Human Disease
“We don’t get or have time at all – that instead we are time.”
Five Questions:
Where in your life or work are you currently pursuing comfort, when what’s called for is a little discomfort?
Are you holding yourself to, and judging yourself by standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet?
In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be?
In which areas of life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you’re doing?
How would you spend your days differently if you didn’t care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition?
“...One lives as one can. There is no single, definite way…If that’s what you want, you had best join the Catholic Church, where they tell you what’s what.” By contrast, the individual path ‘is the way you make for yourself, which is never prescribed, which you do not know in advance, and which simply comes into being itself when you put one foot in front of the other.’”
Main Point: We are time. Reflect internally to see where life is taking you.
Afterword: Beyond Hope
“More ready for action, but also more joyful, because it turns out that when you’re open enough to confront how things really are, you’re open enough to let all the good things in more fully, too, on their own terms, instead of trying to use them to bolster your need to know that everything will turn out fine.”
Main Point: Stay open to confrontation. It is an opportunity to learn. Things will work themselves out.
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