Ritual and the Concept of Time

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Hello, everybody. I know a lot of you run by the act of "ritual," however, I prefer rules to ritual, because of this reason: Time is a concept completely lost on me. I am traped in a world where everyone is obsessed with time and schedules, and yet, time makes me nervous. The pondering of the concept in large quanities can freeze me, because I can't understand something that does not actually exist, and therefore nothing gets done...and I have a deadline!! ! I feel like the world around me lives in a list format. This, then this, then this, then that, then we go to bed, wake up, so on.

I don't get it.

I think like: this over here, that over there, and that is in the other room. I think like how a house is structured. I think in rooms and cupboards and compartments. And windows. Eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired. I understand seasons and daylight. That's pretty much as far as my understanding of time goes. Does anyone else feel this way? Is there anyone else who thinks like an attic?

I can relate to this. I struggle with time. Schedules and deadlines and lists cause enormous stress in my life and my marriage.

This rings a lot of bells with me.

I can understand organising one's life by the sun, because it "does" things; moves around in the sky, makes shadows, switches on your orexin system in the morning, makes plants grow, melts butter, keeps you warm, gives you vit D ( if you make sure to get into it for half an hour a day, so you need to know where "it" will be etc ), to fight off flu and metabolise calcium, etc, etc, etc, and seasons for the same reason, but "time" does seem so arbitrary. Planets moving in slow circles round the sun make more sense to me than clocks, which are after all just measuring something. Why do we structure our lives according to a "measurement"?

And yes, "windows", of this action and another, but fitting them together in a series always does me in too, unless someone else is in charge of the whole process like at school and I just have to "obey" the injunctions to go from class to class, etc. But it must have been a bit shaky even then; when I was about 14 I left school after the second period in the afternoon and caught the bus home. I remember standing at the bus stop and thinking that I must have been hyper efficient to get out so much before the others! I did think it was a bit odd, that there was noone else waiting, or even running, for it, because it was always a close thing, catching the best bus. The teachers must have been more used to me being like that than I was aware of because I didn't get told off for it, ( they believed me ) whereas another pupil might have been punished for truanting.

I can connect with stages of processes; cooking for instance. I can calculate when to start cooking the meat/fish so that it is ready when the veg is etc. I have to think about it, but it works. But days in offices where you have, say, five different tasks to do in the morning, on top of answering the phone/switchboard and taking courrier deliveries, ( that's just the last totally classic office job I had so I remember it ); of course I wanted to concentrate on just one thing at a time so the switchboard etc was a nuisance, but I also literally couldn't "think" because of knowing that three of the five tasks had to be done by 11.00 precisely, ( to catch a courrier, etc ), because the "time" made no sense to me, wasn't real. ... 11.00am! ... What is that?

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A cell phone, a calendar function, and you know when you should do things. And end up annoying everyone with that stinking alarm! The snooze function is too easy to use though. I often end up snoozing an alarm for an hour or so.

I relate to what you're saying. Having a clock you can watch, and playing games with it helps sometimes. The only way I can manage to shower for shorter than 15-30 minutes is by having a clock, or focusing on doing all the things I need and not end up standing there thinking about some absurdity.

I think it was Yoko Ono who said it'd be a good idea to destroy all the clocks

I agree clock deadlines can be a pain in the butt....though I think the real problem is the individuals who choose to impose those deadlines. Most deadlines are arbitrary, and there's no genuine, physical need to stick to them, but the deadline-setters don't wish to know that, and can turn very nasty if their demands aren't met. Aspies are prone to black-and-white thinking, so they're likely to worry about being a minute late just because it's measurable, which compounds the problem. I have to apply a cognitive shift in my thinking patterns to overcome that problem. I guess it's the kind of think I'd get from a good CBT session, though I've never had one of those, good or bad.

On the other hand, I have much less of a problem with "soft" deadlines - the type that are just intended as guidelines rather than edicts - because without them, there are many tasks that I'd never begin.......it's rather like the way in which more people will donate to a charity that asks for a specific amount of money per person - in reality you can give whatever you like, but a specific sum gives them something to focus on.

I don't mind clocks as such, in fact I find them quite useful to remind me that it's not as late as I thought it was......and if the clock turns out to be beating me, on a good day I can make an executive decision to cut down on my workload - I often find myself feeling a lot better if I just do that, i.e. come to terms with the time problem and make allowances for it instead of feverishly trying to beat the clock against impossible odds. All I need to do is to remember that it's my clock to accept or reject as I see fit. A clock is a guide, not a god.

Summary: it's not the clocks or the deadlines that are the problem - it's the tyranny of some of the people who use them on us.

I can't measure time on my own. If I'm doing something, I'll have no idea of whether I've been doing it for 15 min or 3 hours. My mother, however, can tell it to within 5 mins of what it is, without looking

Without some kind of time tyrany we would have spent a lot more money in the business world. Imagine that person A and person B are dependent on each other to do their own job. If A showed up late, it would be the same as if both of them showed up late. So personally I understand that application of timing in jobs.

Another thing is that people are dependent on reliance. I a store opens at 7, a lot of people would not be able to buy their pack of cancerettes before work (omg, good grief!) if the store suddenly opened at 12. This would damage the stores reputation, and leed to less margin and sales.

In other business contexts it may be a little bit less important. An example would be that some people may be better at doing their jobs if they get to do the work in an inspiring environment at times they like. But the general rule is that businesses need to be synchronised and most people are slackers if you don't apply force to them.

I understand the basis for deadlines, I just find them difficult to work with.

I actually like clocks, calendars, schedules and so forth. It gives me a comfortable, mentally tidy feeling, being able to structure what is invisible (time) and cut it into neat sections. I like knowing that it's a certain time of year and this is what happens at this particular time of year (I never have calendars with random pictures, always images appropriate to the months). I like flipping a page of the calendar over, crossing off a day on it. Another small 'goal' reached by reaching the next point in time.

Time is not a process.

It is a direction.


The act of me reading this topic still exists, it is over there, in the past. Towards the big bang.

The act of you reading this exists even from what I would call the present, it is off the other way, towards the heat death.


Now, when you are reading this, the me that I see writing it in the present is still there.

He's over there, that way *points towards the past*.

*waves to myself a while ago*


I can probably help you understand the concept of time in a more comfortable way, if you're interested.

I like my day planned and scheduled, things feel chaotic and I get really anxious without it.

That's an example of a deadline being important and not particularly hard to achieve. I was more thinking of the over-ambitious deadlines which are frequently made up by the bosses, and the way they take no responsibility about the logical feasibility of their demands, or the stress that they cause to the victims.


Again, it's not usually a very tough deadline to open a store at the same time every day....though Sainsburys in our town centre is notorious for being late opening on Sundays, yet they haven't gone out of business. A couple of years ago Tesco opened a rival store just up the road, but Sainsburys pulled out all the stops to drive them out of business (showing no social responsibility for the Tesco jobs they destroyed in the process), so now they've got a monopoly and they can provide a second-rate service without worrying about losing sales.


Bosses like to see the workforce as slackers, so they can screw more work out of them without feeling so guilty. But workers are generally paid less than the full value of their labour, and it's common practice to deteriorate their pay and working conditions after hiring them - and our government is making matters worse by pushing the State pension age forward, so remunerations are falling while the demand to work harder has never been greater. It would be a very different moral picture if remunerations were determined (and adhered to) in a jobs market that wasn't a buyers' market.