What is time? And when is time up?

The times they are a-changin’ constantly. Here are some thoughts about history, micro and macro time, productive time, ageing with joy toward the end of time – and why future thinking is essential.

Jan Oberg

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In humanity’s macro-historical perspective, a lifetime is virtually nothing, so we should be realistic about how much we can change the big world—and time—in ‘our’ nanoseconds.

Our time slot has a past, a present, and a future dimension. However—and this is always enigmatic to me—humanity’s large majority seems super-engaged in the past and (some of) the present. In contrast, very few keep their focus on the future, the imagined yet-to-be-born reality.

And – even worse, people are mostly interested in their country’s national – indeed quite often nationalistic – history. They go to national museums, are taught first and foremost their country’s history in school and, in the best of cases, bits and pieces of Western history, Europe in particular. And they see everywhere – in monuments, museums, etc. – how war shaped their history.

However, worldwide, there are very few peace museums and monuments. Most of it focuses on war and, thereby, legitimises warfare as an unavoidable element of history and peace as a residual category between history-determining wars.

Continue reading Chapter 5 of my “WorldMoires” - the opposite of Me-Moires.

It’s an online book in the making, at which you can subscribe to every new chapter.

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