Olga Tokarczuk is one of Poland’s most celebrated contemporary authors; her most recent novel Flights won the Man Booker International Prize. At once quirky and engrossing, one of the themes running through the book’s sketches is time and its connection to travel. I’m a big fan of both time and travel (but not yet time travel), and here I extend – and likely twist – a couple of Olga’s points.

Circular vs. linear time

For most of us, time is mostly circular. Our days play out in largely predictable ways through repeated patterns and welcome routines. We go to work not simply thinking of what’s on our calendar for the day, but also with the anticipation of returning home. Familiar markers punctuate the circle; meals, commutes, grocery stops, maybe a regular Thursday TV show. At night, we go to bed with the intent of waking refreshed, ready to tackle a new – and predictable – day. It’s easy to appreciate the comfort in such a routine; I don’t have to think hard about my breakfast, worry about my commute, search for work at my desk, or wonder where I’ll be having dinner.

In contrast, when we travel time becomes linear. Each destination may be a hop along a path rife with challenging newness. Think about the last time you navigated through an overseas airport, a chaotic train station, or a foreign subway system; I’ll bet you paid unusually close attention. The unfamiliar demands an awareness that the familiar forgives.

In circular time, we live in a cycle of entitlement, encouraged by its inherent familiarity. I’m entitled to my car; to a reasonably consistent commute; to my Peets latte; to a ready array of familiar lunch options. I think I’m entitled to having my dinner when I get home, or at least having one delivered within 30 minutes. There is no shortage of YouTube videos that prove how poorly we can react when something arises to challenge that entitlement.

We lose – or at least we should – that entitlement when we travel. (Some – maybe the French? – might argue that we don’t.) As we move through linear time, increasing the distance from our comfort zones, things become less familiar. We can fight it and get frustrated, clinging to a misplaced sense of privilege. Or we can let go, become the outsider and embrace with grace and humility the strangeness that the unfamiliar offers.

It’s easy to lose sight of the distinction. Circular time also has destinations – school, an office, a movie theater – as well as new experiences – a different restaurant, a friend’s graduation ceremony, a day at the park. But these are small doses of uniqueness buried in the sugar that we sometimes call culture. On the other hand, linear time ultimately curves us back home, no matter how far we travel; even nomads return to familiar lands.

Instead of a clear demarcation between circular and linear time, there is an unbending, largely relative to the physical and cultural distance traveled. If I drive from San Francisco to Reno for the weekend, I have a destination in mind, a hotel in a different US state. There’s newness and linearity in the trip – Reno is unfamiliar to me – but my perception of time will still be mostly circular. Mealtimes and menus, language and customs, the time zone and the climate unite to wrap me in the comfort of the known.

Farther afield, the demarcation becomes clearer. When language, customs, food and transportation are no longer familiar, when jet-lag from crossing multiple time zones disorients, each moment demands heightened attention. Our auto-pilot turns off in favor of hyper-focused manual navigation. (Think of the last time you used a physical map; was it in a different country?) 

Time for tension

I think of the contrasts as constructive tension between two competing desires: the comfort of the familiar vs. the vulnerability – danger, almost – of the unknown. We want both, but they seem mutually exclusive. We like the predictability and safety of circular time, yet we crave the adventure and excitement of linear time.

Linear time suggests a trajectory; I am hurtled through time and space, at the mercy of many external forces. I have learned to cede control, to allow the strangeness to seep in, to transform me. I am no longer the center of my world, as I sometimes think I am when I’m in circular time; in an important sense, I become lost. I’m first an observer, then perhaps a participant, but I’ll always remain an outsider. It’s not just a means of managing stress by accepting the things I cannot change; it’s an invitation to experience the unexpected. As Olga puts it, “linear time is full of the promise of unrepeatable possibilities.”

Lost in time and space

We rarely get lost in circular time; our routes are familiar, and detours – accidental or not – are minor inconveniences. If we do, we think of it as failure, resulting in a late doctor’s appointment or a missed dinner reservation. Linear time encourages getting lost; I enjoy wandering through cities without a map or a destination. Or maybe it’s just that I know I’m more likely to get lost in unfamiliar places, and I’ve simply learned to accept and welcome the disorientation. Even with a map, the curving canal rings of Amsterdam, the narrow alleys in Venice, the haphazard sois in Bangkok and Tokyo’s crooked dori are guaranteed to lead you somewhere you weren’t expecting.

In A Field Guide to Getting Lost, San Francisco author Rebecca Solnit points out that the word “lost” comes from the Old Norse los – the disbanding of an army. She writes “…this origin suggests soldiers falling out of formation to go home, a truce with the wide world. I worry now that many people never disband their armies, never go beyond what they know.” If we allow the easy comfort of the familiar – of circular time – to crowd out the adventure of the unknown, of getting lost – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually – in linear time, we limit our world, our chance of finding – and being found – anew.

Time to disband our armies.

Happy New Year!