Being Late for the Stern Meeting

  I had a dream last night that seemed terrifying yet mundane in its own way. I was trying to get to some work related meeting but, due to unforeseen circumstances, I somehow forget or don't know where the meeting room is, among a vast network of rooms in this immense white, swirling tower. When I finally get a tip on where the meeting room is, there are only five minutes remaining of the meeting itself. I am met with many stern faces, all of which resemble a kind of miniature United Nations, and I feel as though I had let down my former manager.

   I am not so sure how to analyze this, other than to say that perhaps it's the nightmare of the ego that is always trying to keep a tight hold on itself. We often describe ego in terms of space, as in the expression, "he or she cannot even fit their ego through the door", but we rarely ever think of ego temporally. Is it possible that perhaps an obsession with keeping time, managing time, being "on time" etc. be expressions of a kind temporal ego. And how we can escape the bounds of this temporal ego is only by realizing that it is just the self under the delusion that time completes things. This is, for instance, the expression of someone who is forever trying to accomplish things and meet deadlines, only to find that there are others just around the corner.

  I don't think we can ever return to a time when time is not important. However, it may be useful to check in sometimes and realize that time (the clock time, etc.) is a collective agreement about how people allocate their resources and work together to achieve mutual goals. Beyond that, the time of meetings and deadlines is not so real: it does not actually have a hold on us, since we are simply not defined by time.

   If we sometimes don't allow time to dictate our value or our sense of worth, we might find ourselves breathing more deeply, and realizing that all that is real is this now--the now that you are immersed in fully as you read these words. All else are temporal illusions and vain strivings, because they are only relative goals. And they cannot define who we are in the moment, no matter how hard we try to keep up with time.