As Time Goes By . . .

Matthew Ies Spetter

I am working rather intently these days on assorted projects for Ethical Culture.  Most of this work is done under the auspices of the New York Society for Ethical Culture and the various programs in which I participate.  One of those programs is the Archives Committee, which I chair.  That can take up a lot of time now and then.  The other program is one which is going to take up a fair bit of time today and perhaps over the next few days.  The project of focus at the moment is writing a feature article for the new journal of the Ethical Culture Institute @ NYSEC:  The Annals.

The feature article is a "spotlight" of sorts on Matthew Ies Spetter, a leader for the second half of the last century and the first decade of this century.  My goal is to get several of his platforms, which have now been digitized, posted on the web for others to read.  I hope to do this with all of the leaders from NYSEC and from Ethical Culture in general.  The quality of the lectures, of course, varies.  Adler's own lectures were sometimes a bit of a mess, taking the long view of hindsight.  Even so, too many of our current members have little contact with people who have been trained in philosophy or the mainstream of our history of thought.  This is my effort to facilitate a little self-help.

And so I come to M. I. Spetter's platform of December 24, 1995:  "'As Time Goes By . . .':  Our Struggle to Connect."  Come September 15, it will be published online for all to read.  In the meantime, the first paragraph has already sparked my thinking about time. This post is not about Spetter, but about time.

Time is, I believe, a human construct.  Today is August 3, 2025.  We are taught where the "August" comes from (Augustus Caesar, not to be confused with Julius Caesar, who got July).  So, today we "honor" a dead emperor, who was also called Octavius.  This is the year 2025 by some accounts.  It has different numbers in other accounts.  This "year" is part of what sparked my thinking this morning:  We don't actually know how many times the earth has gone around the sun since this solar system came into being.  This could be the year 4,000,000,025 for all we know.  As for the 3, once you have the year and the month, I guess the actual day is pretty much, well, whatever.

Except.  When I typed the date, I mistakenly entered a 2 instead of a 3.  I corrected it and thought "Time really is flying."  The difference of one day, and yet I feel the pressure of the passing days.  Part of that pressure is self-imposed as I try to meet these self-imposed deadlines and goals..  Part of that pressure is the external deadlines that come from others, both near and far.  I have something to do on the 10th, so I have an obligation to others to honor my commitments to them by that date.  The State of Texas has assigned an expiration date to my drivers license, so I have to take care of that--in person--before that date.  The list seems to be quite long these days.  

Another pressure is life itself.  I'm not getting any younger.  The reality is that I am well past the halfway point in what is possible for a human lifespan.  These days the pressure that I feel from the passage of time says that I cannot waste what time I have left.  That in itself is odd.  What am I wasting?  Why not try to get the most enjoyment I can out of these last years?  Why not indulge myself in, say, the sensuous delight of vanilla ice cream with a sprinkling of crumbled Texas pecans?  

I feel this incredible pressure on my time because there is so little of it in any given day--and an unknown but definitely limited number of days left in this life.  I am performing a service for Ethical Culture in the work that I am doing.  At the same time, I am enjoying the hell out of it.  I love discovering something that has not yet been entered in the Bibliography.  I love the excitement of being able to add to that list, and I love searching the internet to try to find the book or article online so that I can see it, read it, and, very importantly, confirm its bibliographic history.  I love seeing a reference that I don't understand.  Well, of course, I want to understand it, so that means more searching and study.  I become a detective when searching for details of publication, of history, of connections to Ethical Culture, of connections among people and groups.  

At the same time, I find myself resenting interruptions.  The phone.  The door.  Even the cat.  Even my bladder.  Interruptions can interrupt my train of thought; then it might take time--even days--before I can return to the work that had me so absorbed prior to that interruption.  One consequence is a pile of "work in progress" projects that need my attention, sitting there waiting for me after that one interruption pulled me away.  It is my natural, probably human, attitude that makes me resent these interruptions, wanting to continue the pleasure of the work that I am doing.  Indeed, it might be compared to the delights of vanilla ice cream with a sprinkling of crumbled Texas pecans.  To indulge myself in that delight is to indulge in pleasure that, in some ways, will ultimately be harmful to my health (especially at this late point in my expected lifespan, given the effects of sugar and fat on my liver).  Indulging in my beloved work on the Bibliography--and the hoped for Ethical Culture Online Library--in important, not just to me, but, I believe, to others.  

Nonetheless, I can (finally) see the harm that I do to myself by spending so much of my time immersed in this work.  By resenting the interruptions, I am also resenting the intrusion of others into my life.  By "burying myself" in work, I am burying myself away from friends and family and the relationships that are key both to maintaining my humanity and to growing my sense of ethics.  Yes, I can (and do) grow in my understanding of ethics by reading and studying the work of those who have contributed to the body of thought associated with Ethical Culture.  Yes, I am performing a service for others, performing an ethical action, if you will, by doing this work.  But this work, alone, will not allow me to practice my ethics in human relationships so that I can learn from the practical experience of those relationships, putting, as they do, all that reading and studying to the test.

In his second book, To Deny the Night:  Reflections on Life and Essence, Spetter wrote:

It is quite true that we are born and that we die, alone. But as we live, we exist within the reach of one another and thus can justify hope and the enjoyment of life by our deeds. The fact of solitary emergence and exit is not what constitutes human tragedy. Tragic is that life which remains in alienated abstinence of relationship and obligation.

The need to live in relationship to others--reciprocal relationships based on mutual respect, caring, and, importantly, sharing of self--is a constant theme in Spetter's writing and lectures, extending from the earliest works to which I have access to the latest.  I want to continue with this work--truly, madly, deeply.  But I also want to try to focus less on the passing of time and more on the opportunity that these interruptions provide.  To talk about the meaning of life with my grandson.  To share memories and laughter with a girlfriend.  To listen to the caller from a non-profit who seeks my support, giving them a listening ear even if I can't give money.  To see the humanity in the young fellow who knocks on my door, offering to mow my lawn.  These interruptions take time away from the work that I want to do, but they also, I believe, keep me connected to others, keep me human--and teach me the value of patience.  Time is a human construct.  To spend it with others is not to waste it, but to use it to build relationships, to share love and kindness, to nurture the seeds of the future.