Time efficiency

So I have been debating as to whether I should introduce my chain-reaction (explosion) theory (B) or my sacrifice/efficiency theory (A) first. I’ve decided to start off with the sacrifice concept.

I quote Justin from his article, Abraham, Derrida, and Wretchedness:

“In the Gift of Death, Derrida argues that we make, in every moment of our lives, the same priority decisions that Abraham made when he picked up the knife.
We are always choosing how, and to what ends, we will dedicate our lives. My choice to write down these thoughts comes at the expense (how unfortunate our metaphors revolve around money) of a million other possibilities. I could be reading, eating, praying, or running naked in the woods. More to the point, I could be helping the impoverished and those in need. I was forcibly reminded of such prioritizing when I recently viewed, for the first time, Schindler’s List. At the end of the movie, as Schindler approaches his car to escape the allies, he stands surrounded by over a thousand Jews that he has saved. Overwhelmed, he realized his car might have been sold to save thirty more lives, his gold pin to save one. He is overcome by anguish at his inability to do more in the very moment his is surrounded by those he has saved. His car and pin represent thirty-one infinitely precious lives.
For me, the true frustration comes when I realize the brutish arbitrariness of the whole process. Even if I save person A, there are many others who I wasn’t able to save because I chose to save A. Once you understand that, you can’t help but see that your task is infinite. For each person you help, there are millions you missed.
Derrida argues that every prioritization is a sacrifice. “I can respond only to the one or to the One [God], that is to the other, by sacrificing the other to the one.” Someone is sacrificed in even the kindest of actions. He continues, “I can never justify the fact that I prefer or sacrifice any one (any other) to the other”. ..
…[This is] a parallel to what Father Zoshima instructs: “Everything is like the ocean, all things flow and are indirectly linked, and if you push here, something will move at the other end of the worlds.”…
…But the arbitrariness of sacrifice at the noble end of the spectrum is certainly preferable to the arbitrariness of sacrifice at the decadent opposite pole. How many good lives have been sacrificed to the inane chatter and babble of the bored and inured?... ‘You can’t kill time without injuring eternity.’ How much precious time and energy do we waste at the movies and in games and again, with distractions?
Five years ago I met a woman who needed $1,000 to escape the orbit of her abusive husband and start again with her three children. I spent a morning washing the floors of a local school with her. The money would likely have been stolen by her husband for drink. I do not want to sensationalize my close friend’s poverty; rather I want to explain the effect of that relationship on me now that I live far away from her. I cannot look on anything that costs over $1,000 without thinking that it could be exchanged for a reprise from rape for a poor woman. I see a Hummer and do some quick calculations: for $30,000 less, a cheaper, less vain, but more than adequate car could be bought. That equals thirty women freed. Perhaps it feels vulgar to reduce things to such calculus, I agree. But money matters.
Soon I couldn’t go to the movies without feeling guilty…I began to look for ways to serve—I mean real service. Not buying a name brand tie for my friend or playing soccer with the singles ward, but going out and finding those in desperate need of help.
…Too often I hear people saying that what they are doing has no effect on others, so I have no right to tell them it is wrong. This is a cheap excuse to avoid dealing with reality…Everything you do affects others. Every moment of your life you are sacrificing the other other to the other you have chosen to prioritize.”

Wow! I included way more than I was planning to. You’re just so amazing Justin.

What I want to point out is that sacrifice is inevitable; and I’ve found that it/prioritizing applies on even more levels. One thing I want to focus on, and that I will refer to again and again, is what I like to call ‘time efficiency’ (if this phrase ever catches on, you know who to pay the money to!).
As I had mentioned in my previous post, there was a night this last fall semester that my mind was on a streak (B). I was making discoveries and I so desperately wanted to write down everything or just sit there and philosophize. However, I had a massive amount of homework that demanded more urgent attention. (My mind had to choose to sacrifice either not getting these thoughts written down, or getting an A.) I chose to get the A. How unfortunate.

I become highly doubtful when I hear friends say they don’t have enough time to do homework, go to Family Home Evening and yet they watch TV for at least two hours a day. I myself find irony in the countless hours I can get trapped spending on facebook.

Contrast this to class starting in five minutes, and you’ve just got to finish your homework. You seem to be so desperate to have 5 minutes, wishing you weren’t so incredibly busy and that people didn’t demand so much out of you. Us girls show up five minutes late to church, and yet spend 90+ minutes getting ready for church. Tell me about priorities here.

I worked for the NYC Department of Education this last winter. Out of a 8 hr. work day, I only had about 5 hours of work. I would get on facebook, read my family blog, listen to music, bug my co-workers… just waiting for 4:00 to roll by. I’d get home, make dinner, do my accounting homework. New Yorkers get home really late, so by the time they wanted to party, it’d be bed-time for me. I realized I was just wasting my time away. I started to take advantage of that time I was localized, thinking, writing, and mainly thinking about what I would be doing if I could do anything I wanted. I started writing down goals, to-do lists, songs I wanted to learn (vocal, piano, or guitar). My grumpiness in a lousy government operating inefficiency turned into gratitude for time to contemplate. I became fascinated in my life coming into perspective. Try it! Thoreau was no fool when he stole two years in seclusion, seeking to find meaning in life.

I have since become almost fanatical with evaluating my use of time and maximizing my living. This is no call to hedonism.

How much time do we spend living life; and how much time do we spend sustaining it?