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Comment by thwarted

8 hours ago

Aren't these effectively the same thing? In order to get the benefits of living/working as a group/in a society, there needs to be common elements; aggregating by location/space and by time go hand in hand. If the farmers' market is in the park on Sundays, you can hardly expect to show up at a different time or place and still participate. Regularity, in time or place, is the most common and scalable way to coordinate. The way to avoid that is to remove the need to coordinate, but then, by definition, you are alone.

I didn’t consider that. What I maybe meant is feeling owned by time rather than existing in it. In the past time wasn’t even a concept really. You just went about your life, realized you changed and the sun moved, but nothing like we have now with days of the week, constantly knowing the minute of the day, calendars locking us in months ahead of a day arriving, etc. I believe community can definitely thrive without clocks, however I understand your point.

  • > You just went about your life, realized you changed and the sun moved, but nothing like we have now with days of the week, constantly knowing the minute of the day, calendars locking us in months ahead of a day arriving, etc.

    If you have no other responsibilities, you can choose to treat your days off like this: do some activity (walking, hiking, camping, cycling, paddling/sailing if you're near water) where there is no 'business hours'. Start when you want, eat when you're hungry, head back in when you get tired or if it you don't want to deal with the dark.

    After you're done work on a workday you can do the same thing: what does it matter when you eat, or when you go to bed (as long as you're not late the next day)? Stop wearing a watch or looking at a phone (put them in a pouch) and you can certainly lose track of time easily and 'free wheel' your evenings.

    However I suspect this won't be as 'fun' as you think, at least in the longer term as a lifestyle (maybe for short bursts): I read and watch information on personal finance, and most videos about retirement recommend structure to the day, as otherwise you very quickly get blassé about the whole thing. Even communities that are isolated from larger society, like convents and monasteries, had structure to life, often centred around prayer:

    * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liturgy_of_the_Hours

    * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ora_et_labora