Extreme Productivity – Alexander the Great – About Time 9
I’ve been following Swatch time as it’s the only alternative time I’ve found yet. I’ve replaced my main computer clock by Swatch time. How? I now use a trial version of 1st Clock. Swatch time can be set through Customize Clock>Appearance>Format>Advanced>Time. (You can also get yahoo widgets to use swatch time but these widgets won’t replace your main computer clock.)
Life in Time Prison – Eternal Now
Let me quote something that someone wrote some years back:
I have been thinking lately about “Internet time”, after being surprised to notice myself being struck by how material I added to this website several years ago, seemed like I had added it only yesterday. I asked myself how so much time could have passed so quickly.
Of course persons’ having a sense of things past having happened “only yesterday” antedates the Internet. But I think the Internet may exacerabate it, ever further “shortening” the span of time in which we live, so that a person may reach old age (60? 80? 90?…) but still not yet have — metaphorically, i.e., in terms of cultural self-development — gotten out of diapers, and without being able to feel they have “lived” (i.e., had a full and fulfilled life). [Is this the meaning of Nietzsche’s “eternal recurrence of the same”? Is this our version of mysticism’s “eternal now“?]
This — to me, at least — troubling thought found an echo today [16 Safar 1432 Hijri] (06Apr04), when I read an email in which someone wrote [not in a context of thinking about implications of the Internet for our temporeity!]: “Alexander the Great was only 30 when he over-ran the Persians and founded one of the largest territorial empires in history. Unlike Bush, he invaded foreign lands constructively — literally! — building beautiful Greek cities wherever he went. He built two in Afghanistan and there are still blue-eyed children there.” Perhaps this is not an altogether fair representation of Alexander then at 30 or George W Bush now at 58, but I find it “evocative”, and helpful as a measure for assessing the time (as well as “the times”…) in which we (or at least, I…) live.
Would that the Internet would foster persons maturing even younger than 30, and “invading” the world even more constructively! Would that “Internet time”, instead of shrinking everything into indistinguishable simultaneity, would nurture deepening and enrichment of time, so that, at 30, with perhaps far more than half of his or her life still ahead, each person would be able to look ahead to something probably few have known in the past: a mature and fulfilled spirit in a still youthful body. That would be progress, in my opinion.
Do you really get the essence of what Brad wrote? In the context of what we’ve been doing since past weeks perhaps even Brad didn’t have any idea of the far reaching implications of what he wrote.
Let me ask you a very simple question. Please don’t take it too personally;
Have you gotten out of your diapers?
Me? Nope. Perhaps I was born the day I got out of the time prison – just a few days ago.
Tell me can you think of someone having productivity comparable to Alexander the Great?
Alexander the Great Workweek
Tell me how many productivity books Alexander read? 4-Hour Workweek? 20-Hour Workweek? 200-Hour Workweek? 2000-Hour Workweek… or Alexander the Great workweek? (It can be the title of a bestseller that may even surpass Timothy Ferriss’s original book.;-))
What Alexander did in say 5 years, can anybody living now do in say 500 or even 5000 years?
It’s not about destruction, it’s about construction. It’s about nurturing deepening and enrichment of time. It’s about making this world a more loving place. It’s about enhancing and enlightening the life of our fellow human beings…
Can you Change this World for Good?
World was never the same after Alexander.
World was never the same after Moses.
World was never the same after Jesus.
World was never the same after Muhammad (SAW).
World was never the same after Rumi.
Tell me which clock, which time, which date did these great men follow?
Why our world has gotten short of heroes?
Who is your hero? Or more precisely is your hero a constructive hero like Alexander, Moses… or a destructive her like Hitler, Bush…?
They all changed this world but some changed it for good and some for worse.
A more important question is; the people who changed this world for good, who lived more (I mean productivity wise – for me Alexander the Great lived for more than 500 years) followed which time? Did they follow any time? Or did time follow them? Didn’t they get ahead – far ahead of the time…?
Compare Your Life
Just look at your life. Isn’t your life moving at a very fast pace? Isn’t it so that days pass like seconds in thin air? Isn’t it so that instead of making change in the life of others for good you’re unable to even maintain the basic necessities of life even with great labor? Isn’t it so that you run after deadlines – hourly deadlines? Isn’t it so that you lag behind the time…?
If your answer is yes then you need to ask some questions from yourself; why not you live a fulfilled life? What’s blocking your path to success? What’s the real stumbling block for you?
I believe yesterday was the most productive day of my life. I actually completed all the tasks by evening that I set as target in the morning.
Before I end this post here’s an excellent presentation on Swatch Internet Time from The Swatch Group
P.S. I am not associated to Swatch group by any means.