FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: REVERSAL

[continued from the Last Post.]


EAST WEST TIME PERSPECTIVES

Interestingly, the patron goddess of practical knowledge in classical Greece was Techne. From her name we derive the word ‘technique,’ and within its womb we see carried the idea of step-by-step scientific investigation.

However, techne is additionally one of the Greek words for art, in reflection of her also being its goddess. Her name, by extension, lent itself to the Greek word ‘tikein’ (to create’). Techne served as the polymathic inspiration for science as well as for art.

Today, we often see science and art as opposite attributes of human accomplishment, and as two different zones in the range of academic disciplines. However, there is much to be gained by keeping a flexible mind, in dancing between art and science, science and art. This reversal of perspectives is invaluable, and a technique that has immense value in the world of creativity.

Reversal of perspectives is also a feature when considering time.

Eastern and Western concepts of time are very different.

In the West most people believe the past is something we have left behind and cannot see unless we turn around, or reflect, while the present is where we exist momentarily as we stride forward into the future. But from another perspective, and perhaps as a more accurate metaphor, the Chinese equate time with a river. Human awareness is assumed to be someone standing on its bank facing downstream.

Contrary to the Western model, the future approaches him from behind and transforms itself into the present only when he is first conscious of it out of the corner of his eye, eventually arriving alongside where he is positioned.

Time, the river, moves on, and thus, before he can assimilate the present, it is past already. The present washes away to become history in front of the observer. The approaching future is nearer and it spans his consciousness more broadly than the receding present that is becoming an ever more receding past. The distant past is far away ahead of him, its features barely perceivable.

Instead of squarely facing the oncoming future as in the Western metaphor, the more accurate allegory prepares us for the future in a more opportune manner.

Our peripheral vision, in the Eastern metaphor, is made conscious at all times of the approaching future; this leaves us much better prepared than the blindsided perspective from the Western metaphor.

Applying this metaphor resulted in an evening diversion favoured by the royal families in Confucian China. Their creative technicians designed streams so that they meandered through the royal estates; benches were placed beside their banks, facing downstream.

After dinner, royal princes and their friends would sit on these benches, relaxing, yet happily tense with anticipation. Servants positioned upstream would periodically launch toy wooden boats containing alcoholic beverages.

Facing the past by looking forward, the royal entourage could never know what the future behind them was about to deliver. In this manner, many a pleasant evening was spent in ‘spiritual suspense’ among the members of the court as they blithely became inebriated by these surprises of the future washing up from behind.

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]