Dr Yusuf Abubakar Mamud is the author of In God’s Name with Fight and Turning Forty. He works on studies related to Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), De-radicalization and Counterterrorism, as well as critical thinking studies as the solution to the huge ignorance that continually beclouds reason and civil conversation in Nigeria. Running Against Time, a time to rethink is serialized articles that interrogates existential issues. The articles are written to challenges our intellect so that we can begin to ask the right questions. It will help us rediscover our being-who we are. The entire narrative is deliberately conceptualized within the framework of time. Time is used as the compass that guides the reconstruction of our being and existence.
A TIME TO RETHINK
Time dictate our everyday life. It affects us in different ways depending on our understanding of time. Time certainly is a fundamental characteristic of human experience, but there is no evidence that we have a special sense of time, as we have of sight, hearing touch, taste or smell. One striking and fascinating explanation about time is the tendency to link time to everything in our lives.
Many countries, a long time ago, were able to discover the value of time and used it to propel their developmental needs. They have continued to rely on it to drive their national development. The series of successful national planning, transformation and development drives were all anchored on time. In Dubai, there is a Ministry of Cabinet Affairs and the Future. According to the Minister, “Government, in their old form, cannot impact on the future, the private sector now impacts the future and we see this in the different economic and livelihood sectors”. There is no doubt that we must look at time if we are to keep up with the pace of global development.
Time has been the main resource that triggers development in liberal democracies. When we look at history, starting from the Medieval,Renaissance, down to Industrial Revolution, linking it to the Information Age, we observe monumental changes in cultural practices and values. We also noticed the resourcefulness of time in Western culture. Modern day Western countries like the United States of America (USA), United Kingdom (UK), Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Spain, Italy among others have successfully reconstructed time through the phenomenal of liberal democracies-freedom. The fundamental principle that links these countries together is their quest to utilize time. This was well demonstrated during slave trade, the industrial revolution, colonialism, and in recent times their globalism drive. We can only but notice how proper timing played critical role in the successes of these ventures.
To these countries, the universe is just everything that is seen. So, they are particularly more interested in making the best out of the seen universe. They controlled the rest of the world through pragmatic timing of the seen universe. The seen universe is about commercialization of everything including board room negotiation of big ideas to dictate the direction of the product they sell-freedom. Freedom is the global brand being sold to the rest of the world through their big corporations.
The big corporations like Apple, Google, Facebook, HSBC, CNN, Amazon, Heineken, etc are all marketing the global brand-freedom. The strategy is to keep everyone is on the edge, fill the atmosphere with anxiety and commercialize information systems. So, we are subconsciously glued to CNN, FOX and other media outlets as they indoctrinate us with their information. All that we do is to consume the information which they sell to us anticipating that we will be free. They reconstruct the freedom narrative through some enigmatic symbolism that blows the mind.
Apple (a USA based company) with a 1.3 trillion market capitalization is not just a wishful thinking but the consequence of actualization of big ideas through hard work. These corporations did not achieve this feat through revelations and prophetic proclamations among other conjectures. Rather, through deliberate investments in research and development (R&D) that is bigger than the collective annual budget of all of West African countries’ budget put together. It is all about timing. I therefore suggest that we have a rethink in our approach to time by seeing it as everything and the need to make the best of it.
THE TIME FOR GLOBALISM
The time for globalism is the 21st century. It is big business only for those countries and individuals who understand how it is structured and how it works. All the Western countries have keyed into this venture of globalism as they milk the rest of the world especially the African countries that are yet to wake up from slumber. The USA being the leader of the free world is the first to make the tender offer and the rest of the world buys into the frameup. You may ask, what is this frameup about?
It is the marketing of globalism to the rest of the world. The strategy is to keep everyone on the edge by making time everything that matters. So, everyone is constantly scrambling to be part of the orchestrated drama. A typical example is the global search for a vaccine for COVID-19. It may interest you to know that it is a bazaar of a sort powered by globalism for a particular period of time. World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Fauci of Centre for Disease Control (CDC), University of Hopkins, CNN, Fox News, Donald Trump and other actors are constantly at the centre stage constructing and reconstructing the narratives that spins the global public opinion on COVID 19. Everyone is kept on the edge, consuming every available information at a price.
Big ideas on how to use the COVID-19 pandemic to make big money continue to fly around the big corporation while small ideas on how it could be stopped within specified localities are kept hidden from public domain. The focus is to get the patent right and ensure that the big cash keep flowing as usual.
The rule is to make it look real as the big actors constantly are at each other’s neck. The rest of the world is kept on red alert with the breaking news from CNN, Fox, MSNBC and others. Their worldwide viewers from their respective cable network continue to shoot up, the adverts roll in which translates to more money. Experts are invited from universities and other research institutions to fire up the analysis. The public is kept on the edge as hope is being ignited through the news of a vaccine and deals are being signed.
In all of these confusion, big corporations are smiling to the banks. The reporters are collecting big cheques. But if we take a second look at the orchestrated drama, we see how we are all hooked up in the globalism drive. Everyone is saying the same thing ranging from WHO, CDC, Trump among other key actors using their preferred cable networks for public communication. But the narrative is presented differently which tend to mystify COVID-19. The essence is to send a new kind of message and the objective remains commercialization of freedom.
Y2K
The value of time was globally illustrated during the millennium bug debacle in the late 1990s, popularly referred to as Y2K. I remembered there was a global warning that computers would not cope when the date flicked over to 01/01/2000. It was the early days of globalism. The script of globalism was to use exaggerated fear to create global dominance. It was a time set to recreate a new capitalist system. It was called the millennium bug-Y2K. The letter “Y” stand for “year,” the number “2,” and “K” for “thousand” (from the Greek “kilo”).
The Y2K problem emerged when information technology chaps began to fuss about the possible problem at the beginning of the millennium. They argued that all data processing were stored as a 2 digit field. So, at the end of the 20th century, it was anticipated that software applications that used dates for time-sensitive calculations would stop working or produce erroneous results when the year switches to 00. Everyone was concerned about the problem.
The global computer industry’s response involved a massive software rewrite, with official “Y2K ready” certification issued after extensive testing. Different solutions were implemented for different systems, depending on their memory capacity. Huge sums were spent to prepare for the consequences of the bug. However, after so much euphoria that accompanied the millennium bug, midnight passed on the 1 January and the crisis failed to materialize or manifest. The world did not come to an end as predicted. Planes did not fall from the sky. Power stations did not melt down as anticipated. What was all the fuss about?
Everyone bought into this narrative and the information was commercialized as usual. After analysis upon analysis, it was pertinent that the choice before everyone was to adopt preventive measures especially when the cost of prevention was set so low. Programmes were developed and set at a fee for the public. So, your choice was to give a try and experience peace of mind in knowing your PC was Y2K compliant. So began the commercialization of the information process through creation of different global brands.
In all of these, some lessons were learned. First the Y2K crisis didn’t happen largely because the actors prepared for it over a decade in advance. In my opinion, it shows there is value in time. We either prepare on time to succeed or don’t to fail. There were apparent ripple effects of the millennium bud discourse. It became a conduit pipe for marketing of brands. The fact that the computer world reacted on time saved the day. Therefore, general public is at peace today because the world prepared for the Y2K.
TIME VALUE
The value of time can better be appreciated when we are faced with the option of putting a value to our life. The Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629-95) took advantage of Galileo experiment and pioneered the idea of precision timekeeping using technological tool. We can regard the effort as an attempt to put value to time. Huygens successfully applied the Galileo Galilei’s (1564-1642) invention of the pendulum as a regulator of a clock mechanism in 1657 (Racevskis, 2003).
Huygens’ ‘tick, tick, tick’ helped us to develop a way of tracking the passage of time. It exposed us to the temporality of time and brought time-consciousness to human culture and life. As Racevskisput it: “Those privileged enough to own newly accurate timepiece had the ability for the first time in history, to chart the minutes of their own daily lives with a portable device” (2003:19). But the device could not help us to know time, otherwise I won’t be writing about time now in the twenty first century.
The question is, can we actually arrive at the value of time? I would say yes to the question when we reduce time to a material. This is where monetary value is placed on time. Time value of money is used in the stock market, investors, insurance among others to calculate scenarios for financial gains. In this sense, it is a prime opportunity for profit.
However, the time value seems to dwell in our everyday relations with one another. This is slightly related to Heidegger’s Being and Time (Heath, 2015). Time determines the truth value of statements we make on daily basis. For instance, if I say, “I will have lunch tomorrow”. How do we determine the truth value of the statement without considering time? My submission is that the proposition has no truth value right now or we could refer to it as indeterminate. However, when the relevant time comes, and I either had the lunch or I didn’t, then we can determine the proposition as either truth or false.
Also, the irreplaceability of time makes it absolutely valuable. For instance, if I go to the market to buy some food items and perhaps forget to buy tooth paste, I can easily go back to the market to buy that tooth paste. The time it took me to go back to purchase the item, traditionally cannot be retrieved. We believe that it is lost forever into the past.
Time is linked to reality. This idea is hinged on the correspondence theory of truth. The correspondence theory of truth is the view that truth is correspondence to, or with, a fact. This view was advocated by Russell (Russell, 1903) and Moore early in the 20th century. The linkage of the truth to fact suggests that truth exists in reality. The main characteristic of reality is time. So, we are back to time value again in a normative dimension.
Each time we refer to the concept of time, it suggests some form of limitations in our being. That is to say, everything around us is time bound. We all do not have the luxury of time to accomplish all our desires. We are time bound, therefore, we must work within a certain time framework to achieve our goals.
TICKING TIME
I am sure you can remember your childhood recitation “tick says the clock, tick, tick, what you have to do, do quick”. Do you remember this short poem? Well it depends on your generation. For those born before the 1980s, it was a popular recitation in primary schools. And we recited it with so much amusement without realizing we were admonishing ourselves with the most important words. Unfortunate we never realized it is indeed ticking and every moment really counted.
Our cultural language of communication has a way of admonishing us about the importance of time. We often hear the words ‘time waits for no one’, ‘time flies’, ‘time is not on my side’. People make these sentences on a daily basis. The central point in all of these words-time is the organizing principle of our daily lives. It means that every moment counts as we spend the time watching Premiership and other soccer competitions wailing and calling names against each team. So does the time tick and we are being spent second by second drawing closer to our destiny.
Living is with time and it continues in time until you are no more. Our ancestors relied on the sun measuring time. The position of the sun was used to describe time such as day and night. They also used seasonal time to describe events such as raining season which is the planting season and dry season which is the harvest season. Yet time ticks on and on whether it was measured by the sun or by season. Our ancestors knew that time was important and they tried to regulate their lives within the orbit of time.
Have you ever spoken to a friend and minutes later you are called to be informed of his/her death? No matter the status of the person that dies, time keep ticking. Whether our perception of life is based on determinism or fatalism, what matters most is that the time is ticking. Time is a continuum and everything is based on time. Our importance is only a condition of our presence. None of us is indispensable.
The question that emerges at this junction is whether there would be an end to time. This is a classical question that bugs a lot of smart people. The time-line continuum has been used to explain the puzzle of whether there is an end to time. The quantum time is also an explanation of how time exist differently from the time-line continuum. It tends to explain the interconnected of our universe. The idea that our world would come to a sudden end has also concerned religions for a long time. The Hindu concept of Pralayam, the Christian idea of the Day of Judgement, the Islamic notion of Qayamat are all beliefs that there is an end to time. Again, we may ask, “is the death of a man the end of his time”?
All living things wear out which is why we see changes in the world. This can be described as the flow of time. Even in our body (human body), we see how time act on it. We realize the changes that come with time, the fading beauty and wrinkling skin. Many of us think that time is ever present and that is why we perceive it as a resource. Reduction of time to resource only gives us temporary joy. To perceive time as a resource will only make us slave to our insatiable yearnings. It is therefore better that we perceive time as the map of our lives.
