Who Put Molasses in the Hourglass?
Kairos, Chronos, and the Perception of Time
In the 39th week of this year, I had hour-ish-long coffee dates with two friends in two cafes three days apart and I experienced wildly different perceptions of time as they occurred. How did one coffee chat begin and end as though time collapsed on itself? Why did the other pass as though time was stretched like saltwater taffy? My inquiring mind and I turned first to Greek mythology, as one does.
Chronos, their personification of time, is the primordial namesake of chronological. Chronos is often conflated with Kronos, the Titan harvest god that castrated his father, Ouranos, and ate his own children. Though I've spent hours digging through forums of enthusiasts and reading scholarly articles, I haven't achieved sufficient clarity as to whether or not they were intended to be separate. It's not exactly surprising that many ancient texts from the 6th century BCE have been lost to time. Or that we are left reaching into the dark when it comes to understanding and reconstructing origin myths. But perhaps that's the point.
That Chronos and Kronos are so often conjoined tells me how humankind really feels about the concept of linear, passing time. Kronos was a cruel consort to Rhea, just as his father was to his mother. In his desperation to not be overthrown as foretold, Kronos devoured his children. For these crimes, he was overthrown by his son Zeus and forced into retirement in Tartarus, "the darkest, gloomiest depths of the earth," according to Annette Giesecke's Classical Mythology A to Z.
You would think that this mythic characterization of time as a father who was willing to commit infanticide to keep his place on the throne would act as a deterrent. But instead, humankind became obsessed with time.
We gave it a face and a voice that sounds like a mouse when it eats and called it a clock. We strapped this clock to our wrists and called it heirloom jewelry. We agreed to jolt ourselves out of slumber with digital clocks that honk like a gaggle of angry geese. And then there are the sayings. The unkind—"the ravages of time"—and the wistful—"time flies when you're having fun"—and the trite—"time heals all wounds". We're a people hypnotized by the minute hand into a lifelong obsession of too much and never enough.
But there is another kind of time to mind: the right time, kairos. Unlike Chronos, which pulls you into an unrelenting forward march, kairos rises and swells in you like a tide under the moon, carrying you on its wave through the window of opportunity. It's the pulse of nature, the time to act if you want the best result. To ignore its urging is to deny favor itself and ensure you almost always over or undercook your food.
