The convention of time that closes cycles and creates perspectives when the calendar turns is an immense paradox of Western cultures. Aspects such as the acceleration of time, liquid modernity and the emptying of meanings in today's world have long been discussed and problematized. The modern world has interrupted, thanks to the emptying of a certain religious culture, the idea of the end of times, as an apocalypse that would approach at an uncertain, unknown, but predicted moment. In the 21st century, time does not mark us as an eschatology, but as a groping around ambiguities and uncertainties about the future that apparently does not belong to us.
More than ever, people consult astrologers, magicians and any magical feeling that restores a fabrication of meanings and provides support in times of uncertainty. It seems that human beings have entered into a collapse of meanings and the enchantment with the future has evaporated.
Time is raw material for historians! But the perception of what time is and its dimensions and symbolisms vary for each society and era. Among so many conceptions there is something very noticeable: time is movement. Currently, we have an idea of time as something linear, which passes and never comes back. The Mayan people, in turn, saw time in a cyclical way, so that the world had been destroyed and recreated several times. Even the ancient Greeks, in a sense, believed that history could repeat itself: in large part, this was due to the action of the gods.
Time as a human construction
The existence of calendars, dates and cycles of different orders indicate something perceptible and experienced in the relationship with nature. The days, months and seasons of the year are data that we record and incorporate into our way of being and living. Calendars are the record of a sequence of natural episodes, such as day and night, that we insist on counting one after the other and, even though terrified by the loss of youth, people rejoice and congratulate each other at each cycle.
Calendars are useful because, through them, we make it more evident which events came before or after, allowing a chronological organization of the events experienced by people. But, for the historical discipline, it is not enough to point out dates along a timeline. As literary critic Alfredo Bosi would say, “dates are tips of icebergs”. We need to go down to the depths and try to draw the hidden part of the ice, in order to develop meaningful interpretations of historical processes, taking into account their duration.
Time, as a human construction, is marked by the accumulation of experiences and meanings attributed by multiple subjects and episodes. Changes and permanence, for example, impact individual and collective experiences and their perceptions of the world. The marks of a revolutionary process, for example, dialogue with the expectation of the future that is under construction. The persistence of crises or the insufficiency of responses to concrete situations in a given period amplify the feeling of impotence for the future and, often, project a glorious past that seems sweetened in the face of the bitterness of the immediate time.
There is no shortage of modern-day examples that challenge our expectations of the future. Refugees, the unemployed, the loss of rights, the growth of authoritarianism, global warming, among other points, seem to be the design of a world that has not come to fruition. From a society promised in the expectation of progress that, in the end, did not come true for the majority of people, we accumulate frustrations and despair that make us continue walking, but without a very clear direction.
Reinventing expectations
If, on the one hand, there is a feeling of impossibility that affects different groups in the globalized world, on the other, there are experiences that want to bring about, even with forceps, another world and a different expectation of time. There are movements and people that demonstrate solidarity, there are traditionally marginalized groups that claim and demonstrate their strength and protagonism in this very present time. There are insurgencies and imaginations that, while not being as mobilizing as the collective dreams of previous decades, project new subjectivities, imaginations and expectations for the future.
The imponderable and chance also mark the way we relate to time. Without the naivety of thinking that time is the medicine that cures everything, we must be aware of other clues and gaps that provide oxygen when everything seems impossible.
With due apology for the generalization, I look to the not-too-distant past for an example of a difficult situation and a rapid change of spirit given the times and the episodes that were going on at the time in Brazil. In August 1954, the trauma of Vargas' suicide, despite views about the ruler, marked Brazilian history. In 1955, a period marked by optimism began in the country, which was supposed to meet modernity and realize its future. What has changed? What have time and memories about those years produced? This would be a broad discussion that goes beyond the scope of this text.
For now, I'm only interested in the idea that time is movement and that people and their circumstances create and impose the condition for thinking about changes. This was the warning of Camões (1524-1580) in his beautiful sonnet:
Times change, desires change,
The being changes, the confidence changes;
The whole world is made up of change,
Always taking new qualities.
We continually see new things,
Different in everything from hope;
Evil remains in memory,
And the good, if there was any, is missed.
Time covers the ground with a green mantle,
That was already covered with cold snow,
And finally the sweet song turns into tears.
And besides this changing every day,
Another change is surprising:
That doesn't change as it used to.
Happy 2018!
