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The Thing
Week 39 (7.8.01
- 7.14.01)
This is not "the thing" (meaning
the actual idea submitted as Scott's assignment).
This is the list of directions that lead Scott to "the thing."
"The thing" is hidden.
This is likely to be the only thing that Scott will be the first to know.
When Scott finds "the thing" he will find out what he is expected to do for up to an hour a day for a week.
Scott:
Before finding "the thing" please consult your calendar.
Be sure to reserve exactly one waking hour each day to be able to effectively do "the thing." (It may not take a full hour each day but do reserve a full waking hour each day. The hour can be early morning, late afternoon, evening. It doesn't matter.)
Directions
In the Longfellow neighborhood – a neighborhood based on the infamous grid system – there is a small, slightly hidden, exception to the right-angle rule.
Here, a circular street borders a kind of natural oasis.
Go to 34th Street and Park Terrace (see map), where you'll find a sunken park filled with trees.
Find your way into the park (there are several paths) and go down to the bottom of the sunken park.
Walk and look until you find a tree with a white, spray-painted 'S' on it.
The trunk of this tree is hollow.
Reach inside and pull out "the thing."
"The thing" will tell you what you are expected to do for up to an hour a day for a week.
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The note
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This is "the thing"
The thing about "the thing" is: how you choose to spend your unexpected free time this week will tell you something about yourself. What do you do when you've been led to believe you'll be given a specific instructions and those instructions don't materialize? – When you've set aside time that is suddenly made available again? What do you choose to do with freedom? When things don't go as anticipated, is the opportunity to learn diminished? Exaggerated? Unchanged? Of course, the question arises:
Have I actually given you the week off from engaging in an exercise
that will help you better understand yourself? Yes and no. Have a nice week.
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Observations and Notes:
Time is like water, it can be diluted, absorbed or evaporate. It ebbs and it flows. The better defined it is, the easier it is to measure and control.
Strange as it might seem, I was a bit dumbfounded when I received this assignment. My first thought was "What is now an appropriate use of this gift of time?" My inclination was to plan or do something special with it each day, my second was to leave it unplanned and just go on my merry way. I experimented with a little of both. The hours and days came and went. Here and there I attempted to remain conscious of my use of time, but when that became primary, the essence was lost.
The first day I decided to make Kris a big Sunday breakfast during the hour. There... I had a "project". Time was measurable... the solution was easy. But was it? I was still making a project out of the hour. I was using it as a container, more than a continuum.
As the week went on I began to loosen my conscious grip on the hour. Yes, it remained defined, but I wasn't focusing on it's boundaries, more the extra space and breathing room it seemed to allot. I joked about having time to do all that flossing and checkbook balancing I could never find the time for. I really even did a little of both.
There is no question that this project has made me much more conscious of time and my use of it. The seventeen hours of wake time I have to spend each day seems overly generous on one hand and quite limiting on the other. It is very rare that I watch the clock, waiting for time to pass as I did as a child. I now use the hands of the clock more as markers, as milestones, often defining my movements more than constraining them.
Kris often tells me that I have a poor sense of time. I will inevitable try to cram more into an hour than is realistic. As with this very project, my natural inclination is to measure time by my accomplishments. This tendency has its rewards, but it can easily overshadow the subtleties of life when it becomes my primary focus. Finding a comfortable sense of balance continues to be one of my greatest challenges. While this week didn't give me the answer, it did help me better define what isn't the answer.
| Description of how the majority
of the hour was spent: July 8, 11:00am Made Kris breakfast July 9, 6:00pm Changed Saab oil July 10, 5:00pm Ate a leisurely dinner and read July 11, 6:30am Enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and did some writing July 12, 7:00pm Went out to dinner with Kris July 13, 9:00am Slept in on my day off July 14, 1:00pm Shared lunch with an out of town friend, David Henshaw |