The gravity of academia
Since I’ve started university, class work has mostly been something to finish in order to do something else. It was mostly a drag, boring and generally not exciting. Today though, I experienced the draw, or gravity if you will, of academia. The feeling of researching something, putting countless hours of thought into a topic, only to be thwarted by ideas of PhD level complexity or a lack of resources. Having started from scratch several times, it was today that we finally hit on an idea. It flew from there, not only did the research come together, but by the end of the day we had some original thoughts and hypothesis in working condition. This is exciting! What is this project, you ask? Well, I’m glad you did.
We were asked to prepare a presentation on time, anything to do with the idea of time really. This presentation, were it up to par, would then be presented at a Time-use convention to be held at Renaissance College. Our final decision centres around the research done by Australian psychologist Suellen Donnelly in the field of positive psychology. Her research, available here on How Bhutan can Measure and Develop GNH (gross national happiness) is a very interesting development in the ideas behind GNH. she attempts to define how one might, from a personal level, apply the idea of creating happiness using an assessment of needs.
More and better definitions of GNH are available here. We came upon the idea of GNH and correlating time use and happiness in other failed models for this team presentation. What we finally landed on, with Donnelly’s research is this:
We are attempting to define time as the underlying determining factor for happiness; defined in Donnelly’s 8 spheres (of needs to be met to achieve personal happiness;amount per sphere is individual):
Physical Environment
Health/self care
family/friends/community
Personal/spiritual development
finances
work
Intimacy
Social/fun
We will attempt to prove that personal happiness is equal to time well spent. Time well spent or as we are calling it, positive time, is time used to procure a better balance between the eight spheres of personal happiness. In order to determine examples of positive time we will come up with examples of wasted or negative time for each of the spheres and see how these negative time examples correlate to each of the other spheres. This will allow us to better see the overlap between spheres and judge what, if any, events could be considered true negative time (not promoting a balance or improvement in any of the spheres).
It is best understood if time is seen as linear during the course of an event, especially in a negative time occurrence. Positive time begins when an action incurring positive growth in a sphere is committed. This positive time, in terms of that single event, continues so long as that event either continues, reoccurs or is kept up with following positive actions. For example, Jim plants a tree. This improves, among other spheres, physical environment. So long as Jim continues to water and care for the tree, the positive time existing between Jim and the tree continues. The tree will grow and Jim will grow with it. If Jim plants the tree and does not care for it, negative time starts as the tree begins to die. Jim walks by the tree and is reminded of his failure or is simply saddened by the pathetic appearance of the tree. Hypothetical negative time is possible. Were Jim not to plant the tree at all he would never have begun positive time, and so between him and the tree exists infinite negative time. This negative time is more than likely to be “replaced” by positive time in other events. Because humans are the ones to begin positive time, it means that time is a constant flow of hypothetical negative time with positive time overlay. Humans are usually only concious of positive time and negative time, rather than the infinite aspect of hypothetical negative time.
In short, our time is made up of positive and negative times coexisting creating a balanced or unbalanced person.
Our thesis is that happiness exists in balance and unhappiness in unbalance. Balance also exists in degrees, meaning it is possible to be more or less happy or unhappy. We also hypothesize that any problem within an individual’s personal life exists due to an unbalance or complete nonexistence of any of the eight spheres. These could be solved through a positive/negative time analysis and further balance analyzes.
Just a rough beginning. Would love to hear comments/criticism.
