Week One---The Meaning of Time ....

What attracts me to Chinese Medicine? .... I find the fundamental theories of Chinese Medicine most interesting---the relativity of all phenomenon, the connections between the emotional and physical bodies and the subtle and the gross bodies, the focus upon 'balance'.... Like many others, my interest, in part, has grown through my own engagement with Chinese Medicine as a patient. I have studied Eastern Religion academically and in a way, this is a continuation of my studies in religion, philosophy, history and culture, but expanding upon that, I also feel a calling to the practice of 'healing'. This is why I am here.

What do I think of Physics? ... I do not know much about physics, but something tells me I do know more than I think! As a field of study, I feel that it is man's attempt to classify and categorize all phenomena happening in his universe, but more, also an attempt to 'explain the unexplainable' (ontological comfort) .... and control his universe. Many of man's ways of being in the world feel counter-intuitive to me, manipulative of nature (like the harnessing of 'time').

Have I experienced the "slowing down" or "speeding up" of time? .... Absolutely. Time seems to slow down when I am very conscious about its passage---like staring at the clock at work during a slow shift. Time seems to speed up when I am less conscious of time---like when I am fully engaged in an enjoyable activity, like sewing. I have also experienced the suspension of time---perhaps this can be best described as an 'out-of-body experience'.

Reflections on class discussion ... Time has both quantitative and qualitative aspects. To me, the quantitative seems more problematic. Clocks---what is accuracy and precision in the measurement of time? Can time truly be measured---reduced to a mathematical figure sans its quality, the way it is experienced? Time, to me, seems more subjective than objective; we all experience the same moment differently, meaning---time can not be truly standardized. But yet this does not stop us from trying to measure time---clocks are everywhere---strapped to our wrists or chained to our pockets, displayed on the screens of our mobile phones and laptops, glaring in a red digital display from our nightstand table. With the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, time itself was revolutionized. Hence the invention of punctuality, tardiness and the lunch break. Time is something we spend and save, a commodity. Once upon a time, long long ago, man lived according to the seasons, the cycles of the sun and the moon. No more. In the modern world, it seems that most people do things when they are supposed to do things (ruled by the arm of clock), not when they feel like doing things. And while I can lament modern man's loss of living in accordance with nature, his primal instincts, I must also acknowledge that the practice of 'measuring time' does have its functions---it enables an organization of society that would not be possible if we all gave primacy to our un-synchronized internal clocks. In many ways, I live according to the 'machine', the great mother clock ... but I will never have a nine to five job.

Thoughts on next week's topic .... Quantum Mechanics illustrates that the universe can not be uniformly quantified. Surely supporters of a deterministic viewpoint would find this theory either very frustrating, or incomplete. In my view, QM does demonstrate relativity---that Everything is connected, that the universe is dynamic, never static. QM can only predict probability, nothing is definite. Energies constantly shifting; change is inevitable. The world is as it seems ... to me, to you, and to everyone we know and do not know. All of our impressions are real; all perspectives exist at the same time. I am curious to learn more ... !