What is perfect Timing?
It’s not an obsession. It’s just the most familiar way that humans (and I consider myself in that group!!!) in general, relate to experiences and feelings, sensations and activities: we need to measure stuff. To understand something, we need to quantify one thing in relation to something else so that in our minds, that “thing” can have a name, can have a form (quantifiable) and has its place in space and time (also quantifiable in the past present or future).
The concept of “we only got 4 minutes to save the world” (so say Madonna and Justin T), wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a consciousness of 60 seconds to change the world, 2 seconds to be in the world, half a second to perceive the world, a millisecond’s breath to embrace the whole world, or in a “Plank time” to blink and lose it all (Planck time: 5.391 × e−44 seconds. That's 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000005391 of a second!!!! …uk.answers.yahoo.com).
We breathe therefore we count. When my mom almost died last year from severe pneumonia, her main exercise was to blow into a device called a spirometer that, in the most simplest terms, measured her lung capacity. We fill our lungs with air, therefore we fill our minds with countable concepts, and sometimes, we fill our egos with countable objects and desires and passions that sustain it (because while we attempt to EMPTY, even the attempts are countable!) No mind, to gaze and to perceive, to be aware and to recognize and meditate in tranquil unquantifiable nothingness…that is the ideal. But for now, I count my OMs, you count your SHIVAYAs, mom counts her AVE MARIAs, my partner counts his KI-AIs, my sensei counts the money needed to remodel the dojo, and my voice coach uses a metronome click to encourage me to sustain the length of a high C note during singing classes.
Time can go on without us. Space can go on without us. But once the concept of “you and I equals WE or US” comes into the picture of space and time, there is then a thing called TIMING. Without space, there is no such thing as timing for WE. I would like to understand that Timing is time with relationship. Timing is time with love. Timing is time for communication. And all this is you and I, we, us, as we move together in aikido, in the music, in the dance, in life, sometimes at imperfect timing, and sometimes in absolutely perfect timing, even if the sensation of perfection is actually a subjective one that both you and I happen to agree on at that quantifiable yet unquantifiable moment. It is only as significant as the proportion of love and attention we want to give to Timing.
At my actual place of work, time is so special. The favorite salutation I give to our suppliers and collaborators is, “thank you in advance for your timely response” (a very polite way of saying, “hey, please give me a solution quickly because we have a deadline to reach!”). Timing and time in my other jobs previous to this one, was never food for thought or fuel for polite encouragement. Now, every day I punch a timecard registering the exact moment I come in and the exact moment I go out of my office. At first I regarded it as a cute reminder of who my employers are (so Japanese, I love them even if I am of a much more laid-back culture). Now I see the timecard as polite encouragement to build onto basics. If you can’t do something as basic as get to work on time, be on the dojo in time, say “I love you” to your loved one on time (now!!!), then what happens when you are faced with greater challenges? So this happy exercise of peeling away the layers of meaning of time and timing is one fortunate amusement for me, as I continue to count my OMs, my KI AIs and my I-Love-You(s) in this journey with a beginning, middle, and end. Then maybe at the end, I will bow gratefully and say, “thank you for your timely response!”
It’s not an obsession. It’s just the most familiar way that humans (and I consider myself in that group!!!) in general, relate to experiences and feelings, sensations and activities: we need to measure stuff. To understand something, we need to quantify one thing in relation to something else so that in our minds, that “thing” can have a name, can have a form (quantifiable) and has its place in space and time (also quantifiable in the past present or future).
The concept of “we only got 4 minutes to save the world” (so say Madonna and Justin T), wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a consciousness of 60 seconds to change the world, 2 seconds to be in the world, half a second to perceive the world, a millisecond’s breath to embrace the whole world, or in a “Plank time” to blink and lose it all (Planck time: 5.391 × e−44 seconds. That's 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000005391 of a second!!!! …uk.answers.yahoo.com).
We breathe therefore we count. When my mom almost died last year from severe pneumonia, her main exercise was to blow into a device called a spirometer that, in the most simplest terms, measured her lung capacity. We fill our lungs with air, therefore we fill our minds with countable concepts, and sometimes, we fill our egos with countable objects and desires and passions that sustain it (because while we attempt to EMPTY, even the attempts are countable!) No mind, to gaze and to perceive, to be aware and to recognize and meditate in tranquil unquantifiable nothingness…that is the ideal. But for now, I count my OMs, you count your SHIVAYAs, mom counts her AVE MARIAs, my partner counts his KI-AIs, my sensei counts the money needed to remodel the dojo, and my voice coach uses a metronome click to encourage me to sustain the length of a high C note during singing classes.
Time can go on without us. Space can go on without us. But once the concept of “you and I equals WE or US” comes into the picture of space and time, there is then a thing called TIMING. Without space, there is no such thing as timing for WE. I would like to understand that Timing is time with relationship. Timing is time with love. Timing is time for communication. And all this is you and I, we, us, as we move together in aikido, in the music, in the dance, in life, sometimes at imperfect timing, and sometimes in absolutely perfect timing, even if the sensation of perfection is actually a subjective one that both you and I happen to agree on at that quantifiable yet unquantifiable moment. It is only as significant as the proportion of love and attention we want to give to Timing.
At my actual place of work, time is so special. The favorite salutation I give to our suppliers and collaborators is, “thank you in advance for your timely response” (a very polite way of saying, “hey, please give me a solution quickly because we have a deadline to reach!”). Timing and time in my other jobs previous to this one, was never food for thought or fuel for polite encouragement. Now, every day I punch a timecard registering the exact moment I come in and the exact moment I go out of my office. At first I regarded it as a cute reminder of who my employers are (so Japanese, I love them even if I am of a much more laid-back culture). Now I see the timecard as polite encouragement to build onto basics. If you can’t do something as basic as get to work on time, be on the dojo in time, say “I love you” to your loved one on time (now!!!), then what happens when you are faced with greater challenges? So this happy exercise of peeling away the layers of meaning of time and timing is one fortunate amusement for me, as I continue to count my OMs, my KI AIs and my I-Love-You(s) in this journey with a beginning, middle, and end. Then maybe at the end, I will bow gratefully and say, “thank you for your timely response!”
