SONG SQUEEZE S

Stuck in the Future

The pressure of time

It is a gray day. Lots of rain and wind. Maybe just usual for Volda around this time of the year. While sipping my coffee at Café Geiranger, I make plans for the upcoming time in Norway. One thing is for sure: The time here must be used! Already more than a month is over and there’s more to come.

The urge to experience something, to have fun and gather new experiences is definitely there. Not only today, not only here in my semester abroad, actually at any time in my life. Sometimes this urge to experience things is so strong that it makes me even a bit dissatisfied. Too many expectations of what is supposed to happen. Always the future in focus and less the moment in which I live in.

On the other hand, there are these moments when I wish to stop time. In which I want time to never go by. At a party, a hike in the nature or just being together with lovely people. And what do I think in these kinds of moments? It’s the fact that the moment will soon be over again and just become a memory... Sometimes it’s challenging to really enjoy THE moment. But why? And does it even make sense to try so obsessively to live in the moment? So when I take a step back, I realize there are two issues that concern me: Firstly, the urge to always want to experience more and better things and secondly, the feeling of not being able to fully enjoy good moments properly because my mind is already stuck in the future. It becomes obvious that somehow it is always the look into the future that apparently makes me feel a bit restless and discontented. What could be a reason for that? Perhaps the understanding about how we perceive time can provide explanations.

MARS 2022

The train ride of life

Whilst searching for answers, I came across the Babylonians’ understanding of time. The Babylonians are part of the ancient oriental history, they were inhabitants of Babylon, who lived 1800 before Christ. A folk who had their own sciences about astronomy, mathematics and their own understanding of time. Their view and the handling with the past and future is quite impressive.

Nowadays, maybe the most of us might see the past as something that is behind us and the future in front, something that we’re facing. For Babylonians it’s the opposite. Scientists of linguistics found out that the word they used for past is very closely connected with the words describing something that is ahead of us, on the front side. Whereas the Babylonian word for future means something that is behind, at the back.

To clarify this way of thinking, perhaps an example of the psychologist Dr. Leon Windscheid can help: Imagine your life is a train ride, a journey from the past into the future. Whilst we, people from today, are sitting on the train we always have our eyes in the direction of the future and the past is in our back. The Babylonians also move with the train from the past to the future, but there is a big difference - they are sitting the other way around. In their seat they’re facing and looking at the past during their journey into the future. So having the past in sight and turned away from the future. Therefore the Babylonians have made the past something very precious. They basically observe the growth process of time. With every step we take in our lives, our past is growing. Very obvious actually, but it might be helpful to realize this once again.

Floating in between

Related to the first issue of feeling the pressure and urge to always experience more and better, maybe we should try to tell ourselves: Stop for a second and chill! Have a look at the past you already built. If you only focus on the future, the “here and now“ can become quite hectic.

Facing the past can take the pressure off us. It could also help to see the deep urge for more as an essential part of our life. A kind of survival strategy that keeps us alive. This feeling lets us know what we want, what we desire and what we want to fight for. So maybe it’s sometimes just necessary to feel this drive for more as a kind of stimulus. A strategy of our human being which we should be grateful for. Also, there is still the challenge to live in the moment. It seems like it’s not even satisfying and natural to only live THE moment. It should be more a floating between the past and the future. The different times - past, present and future - don’t displace each other, they are all present at the same time. The previous experiences from the past and the wishes for the future guide us through the present life. So we are always somewhere in between and should take a look at the whole.

So for me, my semester abroad and basically my life it means that I’ll just try to be a bit more relaxed with my expectations and not obsessively try to find my happiness somewhere in the future. It doesn’t seem healthy to only seek your satisfaction in the time ahead. All things considered I just want to be a bit more chilled when it comes to enjoying moments. Easier said than done, as always. However, acknowledging the situation and dealing with it is already a good start, I guess.

Even though my thoughts were a little abstract just as tangled and I was unable to provide you an ultimate solution for dealing with time, I hope at some moments you will think about the directions you’re siting in your train of life. Let your past grow and turn around more often!

Text Neele Seeberg Illustrations Caroline Schmiechen