duncan228
04-21-2009, 12:31 PM
Time to consider time (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/21/DDGB174D77.DTL&hw=jon+carroll&sn=001&sc=1000)
Jon Carroll
San Francisco Chronicle
"The clock is your friend." - Tim Duncan
Tim Duncan is a professional basketball player. He plays for the San Antonio Spurs. He has been voted to 11 all-star teams, 11 all-NBA teams and 11 all-defensive teams. His team has won the NBA championship four times. It probably won't win this year - key injuries, although not to Duncan - but the playoffs just started this weekend. As I've remarked before, you never know.
What is most notable about Duncan, though, is his almost preternatural calm. His face rarely changes expression. He accepts the bad breaks and the lucky bounces without histrionics. Some people have complained that he's boring to watch play, but those people have not focused on him for an entire game. He may have the face of a Zen master, but he has the elbows of a street fighter.
And the clock is his friend.
For a lot of us - probably for most of us - the clock is not our friend. We have a deadline. We don't know what to do. Suddenly the clock speeds up in that way that clocks have. Only an hour left. What we have at the moment is absolute garbage. The clock is not our friend.
The clock is Tim Duncan's friend. Soon the game will be over. Maybe it's a close game. Maybe he will make the game-winning shot. And maybe he won't. Maybe his shot will clatter off the back rim. But see, here's the thing: The clock is still his friend. He ran out of time and he lost, but that did not change his relationship with the clock.
(I may be projecting a little bit here. I will acknowledge that you may think that. I actually don't believe that I'm projecting, but I don't want y'all to think I've gone around the bend. Although here, around the bend: better scenery.)
And there are times when the clock does not move at all. There's a wonderful cartoon in the April 20 issue of the New Yorker. It shows Albert Einstein sitting in the waiting room at an airport. He has his suitcase beside him. He is alone in a row of chairs. His shoulders are slumped. The caption: "Einstein discovers that time can stop completely."
You've been there. I've been there. The clock is not our friend. The hands of the clock do not change position. We've entered the waiting room wormhole, where our relative motion is zero. Our actual motion is zero. Our brains are empty, echoing rooms. Maybe we have a laptop, but come on - a laptop! How often do you get to experience a rift in the space-time continuum?
Besides, a laptop almost always brings bad news. This is its function. Do you need to be becalmed at O'Hare and hear that your company is considering more layoffs? I'd say: probably not.
But Tim Duncan is visualizing. It's six minutes to go in the fourth quarter, and his team is ahead by a dozen. That seems comfortable, but Duncan knows that comfort is a chump's game. The clock is his friend. He knows that if he works really hard, he can build the lead to 20 with four minutes to go, and then the Spurs will have achieved, as the announcers say, separation.
Duncan has achieved a detente with time. It doesn't matter what the clock says because the clock is always presenting an opportunity. Maybe you need to slow down; maybe you need to speed up. The clock will tell you what you need to do. Why? Because it is your friend.
Most of us can't live like that. We are governed by the clock, or we have decided not to be governed by the clock. Either way, it's not our friend. But if you really, truly want to live in the moment, the clock has to be your friend. The clock defines the moment - admittedly in a sort of arbitrary system based on the sun, but with unnatural elements like 60 minutes in an hour (why 60?) and 60 seconds (again) in a minute, but ultimately in tune with the cosmos except for that leap year thing.
But if the clock is your friend, you have accepted everything about the measurement of time. You've even accepted leap year. When Tim Duncan plays on Feb. 29, he tries just as hard as on the other days. So I am asking you, in the spirit of peace and harmony in these difficult times - be like Tim. Embrace the clock. Not literally, of course.
The clock is indeed your friend.
As long as a basketball player is your role model, you really can't go wrong - except for those guys who spend a lot of time in the parking lots of strip clubs.
Jon Carroll
San Francisco Chronicle
"The clock is your friend." - Tim Duncan
Tim Duncan is a professional basketball player. He plays for the San Antonio Spurs. He has been voted to 11 all-star teams, 11 all-NBA teams and 11 all-defensive teams. His team has won the NBA championship four times. It probably won't win this year - key injuries, although not to Duncan - but the playoffs just started this weekend. As I've remarked before, you never know.
What is most notable about Duncan, though, is his almost preternatural calm. His face rarely changes expression. He accepts the bad breaks and the lucky bounces without histrionics. Some people have complained that he's boring to watch play, but those people have not focused on him for an entire game. He may have the face of a Zen master, but he has the elbows of a street fighter.
And the clock is his friend.
For a lot of us - probably for most of us - the clock is not our friend. We have a deadline. We don't know what to do. Suddenly the clock speeds up in that way that clocks have. Only an hour left. What we have at the moment is absolute garbage. The clock is not our friend.
The clock is Tim Duncan's friend. Soon the game will be over. Maybe it's a close game. Maybe he will make the game-winning shot. And maybe he won't. Maybe his shot will clatter off the back rim. But see, here's the thing: The clock is still his friend. He ran out of time and he lost, but that did not change his relationship with the clock.
(I may be projecting a little bit here. I will acknowledge that you may think that. I actually don't believe that I'm projecting, but I don't want y'all to think I've gone around the bend. Although here, around the bend: better scenery.)
And there are times when the clock does not move at all. There's a wonderful cartoon in the April 20 issue of the New Yorker. It shows Albert Einstein sitting in the waiting room at an airport. He has his suitcase beside him. He is alone in a row of chairs. His shoulders are slumped. The caption: "Einstein discovers that time can stop completely."
You've been there. I've been there. The clock is not our friend. The hands of the clock do not change position. We've entered the waiting room wormhole, where our relative motion is zero. Our actual motion is zero. Our brains are empty, echoing rooms. Maybe we have a laptop, but come on - a laptop! How often do you get to experience a rift in the space-time continuum?
Besides, a laptop almost always brings bad news. This is its function. Do you need to be becalmed at O'Hare and hear that your company is considering more layoffs? I'd say: probably not.
But Tim Duncan is visualizing. It's six minutes to go in the fourth quarter, and his team is ahead by a dozen. That seems comfortable, but Duncan knows that comfort is a chump's game. The clock is his friend. He knows that if he works really hard, he can build the lead to 20 with four minutes to go, and then the Spurs will have achieved, as the announcers say, separation.
Duncan has achieved a detente with time. It doesn't matter what the clock says because the clock is always presenting an opportunity. Maybe you need to slow down; maybe you need to speed up. The clock will tell you what you need to do. Why? Because it is your friend.
Most of us can't live like that. We are governed by the clock, or we have decided not to be governed by the clock. Either way, it's not our friend. But if you really, truly want to live in the moment, the clock has to be your friend. The clock defines the moment - admittedly in a sort of arbitrary system based on the sun, but with unnatural elements like 60 minutes in an hour (why 60?) and 60 seconds (again) in a minute, but ultimately in tune with the cosmos except for that leap year thing.
But if the clock is your friend, you have accepted everything about the measurement of time. You've even accepted leap year. When Tim Duncan plays on Feb. 29, he tries just as hard as on the other days. So I am asking you, in the spirit of peace and harmony in these difficult times - be like Tim. Embrace the clock. Not literally, of course.
The clock is indeed your friend.
As long as a basketball player is your role model, you really can't go wrong - except for those guys who spend a lot of time in the parking lots of strip clubs.